Cactus Juice
by Invaderk
Summary: Mostly TophxSokka. Need more shenanigans in your life? If so, then this is the place to be! A collection of little Tokka oneshots ranging from romance to comedy to angst. 22. At the end of all things.
1. Not Stupid

_**A/N (1/6/2012) - Ahoy there! Welcome! If you are finding this collection for the first time, please take a moment to read this note. In case you did not notice, I first started this collection in 2007 as a place to house all of my oneshots concerning Sokka. Later, it became a Tokka collection. I personally recommend skipping forward to at least chapter 8, as I did not really start to focus on Tokka until that point. The first half dozen are mostly silliness, which you are still more than welcome to read (I haven't deleted them because people still seem to enjoy them for some reason!). The latter half is still silly, but with just a tad more focus (and a lot more Tokka). Thank you for reading! :D**_

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Happy Reading!

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_Not Stupid_

I'm not stupid, you know. Alright, I can be a little mean from time to time. I occasionally miss the point during conversation, and my judgment can be a little off, but I'm _not_ stupid. I understand, for the most part, what people are trying to say to me. Just because I can't do magic like my little sister doesn't mean I'm stupid.

I mean really, I'm more like the brains of the operation, when it comes right down to it. If Katara and Aang couldn't do their silly magic, we'd be dead if it weren't for me. Then again, we wouldn't be here in the first place – in this war, I mean – if this magic didn't exist, so who's to blame here? Aang's just a kid, you know. You can't blame him for being the Avatar and you can't blame him for doing his magic tricks all the time. It's a matter of perspective.

And anyway, lots of the things that happen to me that one may consider to be 'stupid' are more like 'mishaps' in a way. As in, you don't need to be stupid to drink water from a cactus plant when you're dying of thirst in the desert, and you don't need to be stupid in order to trust your instincts from time to time. All that stuff is pure bad luck. Come to think of it, I have a bit of a bad luck streak – or a good luck streak, if you want to look at it from the 'we're not dead yet' perception. How did I, a simple warrior with a boomerang, come to be a part of all this magic and war and what have you? Bad luck, I call it.

Then again, I can't say that nothing good has come of this. On our little quest I have managed to discover many hidden talents that I possess, such as my adroitness at poetry and the ability to do a little dance I like to call "The Worm" (original name, no?). In addition, I've seen a whole lot more of the female race than I ever would have back at home. And, quite frankly, this is a rather nice change. You see, I've sort of discovered that the ladies dig me, no lie. They really do. And I'm not even being arrogant; since our trip began, I've kissed several very attractive women and have more waiting in line for a chance (though some of them tend to scare me a little). Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to hurt anybody here. I'm just living a day at a time.

So all in all, my life has changed considerably over the past months. Between discovering new things and becoming a better warrior, my love life has drastically taken a turn for the better. I mean _come on_, the Avatar hasn't even kissed a girl yet (and it had better stay that way, judging on the way he looks at my sister). So really, my luck is debatable.

Wait, no, let's not stray from the path here. I'm really just here to tell you one thing, and one thing only: I'm not stupid. If you don't really put much thought into it, I'm sure you'll agree, too. And if you don't agree then, well… you're really missing out on a goldmine of genius.

_Fin._

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A/N: By the way, though this collection is marked as Complete, I may add something at any time.

Thanks for reading!


	2. Oatmeal

A/N: More often than not, my greatest ideas come to me after I shut off the lights and go to sleep. That is why I keep a pad of sticky notes beside my bed at all times. And this little gem was inspired during one of those times. Is it pathetic that Avatar keeps me awake? Yes, I think so.

This particular story may have been inspired by my growing dislike of oatmeal, which I ate every day for a long time.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Happy Reading!

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_Oatmeal_

"Ugh! What _is_ this slop?" asked a very disgusted Sokka. He took a big spoonful of the mushy, bland-colored stuff and let it fall back into his bowl with a sickening _plop_. It seemed to mold back into its original shape.

"It's oatmeal," replied Katara from where she sat next to Aang. "We don't have enough money to go to market, and Aang just happened to have some grains left over from Omashu."

Sokka groaned and leaned his cheek on his hand. "Where's the meat in this meal?"

"No meat, sorry."

"Well I need to have some real food," he replied. With that, he placed his bowl on the ground, stood, and headed over to a sleeping Appa. He dug around for a few moments in his knapsack until he found the weapon he was looking for, but when he turned around, Katara was face-to-face with him.

"You can't go hunting, Sokka," she said.

Sokka crossed his arms and made a skeptical face. How was Katara supposed to understand his desperate need for some real food? Then again, they'd been eating bread and fruit for about a month now. Talk about bland. So now, when they were in the secluded woods, nothing could stop him from going hunting.

"Yes, yes I can," he replied, and forced his sister out of the way in order to go across camp. "I'm a carnivore, Katara, and a man. Carnivorous men need meat – it's nature!" his words were matter-of-factly and said with the air of one telling another about something that didn't interest them.

"No, we have to stay where we are!" she insisted. "If we wander off into the woods we could get captured or worse. That means no hunting –"

"And, therefore, no meat," Sokka finished moodily, giving up. He walked back over to the fire, plunked himself down and crossed his arms. Katara sat back down next to Aang. "I'm just sick of eating food like this. Bread, nuts, _oatmeal_ –" he waved an arm at the lonely-looking bowl in front of him "As soon as this is over, I'm going to eat nothing but meat for a month."

He closed his eyes and clasped his hands over his growling belly, visualizing steaming cutlets and juicy, fried –

"I never eat meat, Sokka." Aang interrupted Sokka's daydream, using his Airbending to stand up with his full bowl of oatmeal in one hand. He stepped over Katara, grinning at a scowling Sokka, and headed past the fire. "I'm sure you can – whoops!"

Aang tripped, fell in front of Sokka, and the bowl went flying through the air. Sokka saw this happen in slow motion, but his entire body seemed to be frozen in place. Except for his eyes. His eyes watched as the bowl turned over in midair, sending oatmeal all over, and landed, upside-down, on his head.

Sokka felt a large, sticky glob of oatmeal drip down his neck and into the back of his shirt. Katara sat frozen in her spot, her hands clapped over her mouth to keep in either a laugh or a cry – he couldn't tell which was more likely. Aang looked up from where he was sprawled clumsily on the ground, saw Sokka sitting there with the upturned bowl on his head, and scrambled to his feet.

"Sorry, Sokka," Aang apologized. He awkwardly reached up and took the bowl off the older boy's head and picked up the other bowl that still lay on the ground, untouched. With a nervous, apologetic grin and an even more unsure laugh, Aang held out the bowl to Sokka, whose jaw was clenched and whose face was dripping with a gooey, beige mess.

"Heh… care for some oatmeal?"

_Fin._


	3. Decisions, Decisions

A/N: I wrote this mostly because the idea of an angry Sokka breaking stuff makes me happy. :D

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Happy Reading!

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_Decisions, Decisions_

Sokka sat in the center of the room with his machete propped on his leg. Sharpening his weapons was something that he did either when he was bored or when he was feeling thoughtful. At the moment, he was far from bored. Too many troubling thoughts had been working into his mind as of late, including the war and the encounters that they had faced. Namely, though, he couldn't help but wonder what to do about his recent feelings. Sokka had a rather large problem: he had feelings for three women, one of which was dead. Of course, he knew that she wasn't coming back, but all the same he felt guilty for wanting to move on with his life. And why shouldn't he move on, he thought? He ran his sharpening stone over the blade of his machete with an incensed expression on his face.

Suki and Toph. Toph and Suki. One liked him for certain, but was never around. The other was never gone (with, ironically, the exception of right now), but didn't seem to have feelings for him. Or, at least, she was pretty good at not showing it. Then again, how was he supposed to catch her looking at him if she _couldn't _look? What a predicament for a simple warrior, one that made him feel like a terrible person for fooling around with the hearts of women.

Slowly but surely, he felt a tension building up inside him that showed in his expression and aggressive sharpening. And as fate would have it, Aang chose this moment to stroll into the room.

"Hey Sokka," he casually threw out. Then he did a double take and stopped where he stood. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, Aang," Sokka answered through clenched teeth, giving his weapon another good swipe with the sharpening stone. "What gives you that idea?"

Aang, now somewhat apprehensive, took a few hesitant steps forward. "Do you… want to talk about it?"

"No."

"Uh, okay." Aang turned slowly around and began walking away.

Sokka suddenly felt the frustration inside him begin to boil over. He dropped the sharpening stone, closed his eyes, and tried to push the thoughts of Yue, Toph, and Suki out of his mind.

_Don't think don't think don't think uh oh here we go i'm not thinking about it yes i am yes i am –_

"No I'm not!" Sokka leapt to his feet at the same time as Aang spun around to see what the older guy was talking about.

"I didn't say anything!" Aang defended himself, holding his hands in front of his chest as if getting ready to push Sokka away. His expression was confused and a bit surprised.

Instead of clarifying, Sokka stood up with his machete in one hand and the other balled into a fist. His words were loud and harsh as he shouted, "It's not fair, Aang!" A loud smash followed as Sokka brought the blunt end of his weapon crashing down onto the table.

Aang winced. "_What's_ not fair?" he asked, baffled, as he stared down at the broken table. He waited for a response and when he got none, ventured further. "Is this about Princess Yue, Sokka?"

Sokka raised his eyes to his friend's face, taking in deep breath after deep breath. The grip that he had on his machete almost hurt his hand. "Yes," he answered in a dangerous low. "And Suki."

The Avatar's expression turned to one of dawning comprehension. He took a hesitant step forward, but stopped when Sokka raised his machete again.

"Sokka, it's not a bad thing to like Suki!" he exclaimed. "Princess Yue… she would have wanted you to be happy."

"But is it a bad thing to like more than one woman?"

"Well…" Aang trailed off. The answer was 'yes', but how intelligent would he be if he said that to an angry man with a weapon? "I don't know. Yue and Suki, you mean? I guess it's not –"

"Yue, Suki, and Toph."

Aang's mouth dropped open and he stepped backward. "You like _Toph_?" he gasped, in utter shock. This reaction only fueled Sokka's already burning anger; the warrior gave an aggravated yell, swore loudly, and proceeded to destroy the other table next to him. Eyes wide, Aang took another step back. He'd never heard Sokka swear before, never.

"I _know_ it's wrong," Sokka said angrily, kicking away the wooden leg of the table that he had chopped.

"Well who do you like more?" asked Aang, slightly apprehensive.

Surrounded by the remains of two tables, Sokka sank to the ground and pulled his knees to his chest. Hid machete lay, forgotten, beside him. "I don't know," he murmured, putting his chin on his knees. "I keep hoping that I'll stop liking one or the other or – or even both of them, but it's not happening.

Aang, who sensed that the danger was gone, walked over to his friend's side and placed a hand on his shoulder. "I understand, Sokka," he said gently. "I think if you just –"

But Sokka never got to hear what he should do, because Toph and Katara strolled into the apartment at that very moment. Katara gasped when she saw the destroyed furniture.

"What happened?" she asked. "Toph said she felt shaking coming from here, but this is _not_ what I expected."

"Who broke what?" asked Toph.

Aang and Sokka shared a blank look, and then Sokka leapt to his feet, snatched up his machete, and headed for the door.

"Aang did it," he said hastily, and then he was gone.

Mouth hanging open, Aang watched in surprise as Sokka disappeared behind the door. Then he turned to look at a very confused Katara, gave an embarrassed laugh, and scratched the back of his neck in uncertainty.

"Well," he began, giving the two women an unconvincing smile, "You see… there was this saber-toothed moose-lion…"

ooo

_Fin._

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A/N: So I know it's not my best, but I like the general idea.

www(dot)freewebs(dot)com/invaderk/avatar(dot)htm


	4. Small Talk

A/N: This is just a 500-word oneshot I thought up a long time ago. I thought it'd go well in the Cactus Juice collection, for a balance of genres. It's short, sweet, and straight to the point, and I hope you like it.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Happy Reading!

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_Small Talk_

"It's been a while, hasn't it?" Sokka asked as he sat down on a rock a few yards away from the tent. He pulled his boomerang out of its holster and ran his thumb along the dulling blade. "I've just got a few things to say, if you don't mind – small talk, stuff like that."

After a few moments he gave a small smile and tore his eyes away from his company only to dig around in his bag for his sharpening tool.

"I sharpen my swords and stuff a lot," he said, running the tool over the blade of his boomerang. "Sometimes I do it when I don't really need to, but I've been using it a lot in the last couple weeks. But anyway, I hope you're doing better in the war than the rest of us. I've really missed you, probably more than you think I have.

"Me and Katara talk about you sometimes, about how you left and how we took care of the village for a while after you left. It's kind of hard to think about because you left so suddenly, but I think I'm starting to accept it now that I've had time to think about it. We've all made sacrifices, haven't we?"

Sokka sighed, stopped his work, and looked down at the ground. He felt a strange drop in the pit of his stomach and frowned.

"I mean look at Aang. He almost _died_ in Ba Sing Se. He's given up everything for this." Then, with a laugh, Sokka looked back up from the ground. "Well, everything except Katara, from what I hear. Now _that's_ an interesting story. I'd like to tell it to you sometime, but its kind of complicated." He gave what was between a laugh and a sigh, letting his boomerang fall from his limp hand. "I don't even know if she does like him, but recently I've been picking up that vibe. You know the one. She thinks she's really smart, but she doesn't even notice that Aang's crazy over her. Toph can't even _see_ and she can tell. We – me and Toph, that is – we figure that we'll let them spin until they figure it out. It's more fun that way.

"I know you haven't really met Toph yet, but I think you'd like her. She's kind of mean, but after you get to know her it's just like knowing any other person."

A rustling sound came from the nearby tent, and Katara stuck her head outside. "Sokka?"

"I'm comin'," answered Sokka, standing up and giving his sister a reassuring smile. Katara nodded and pulled her head back into the tent. He turned his head back to his company.

"Thanks for listening to me ramble," he said as he picked up his boomerang and slipped it back in its case. Sokka turned away and walked back to the tent, but stopped outside it and gave one last smile to the full moon. "Goodnight, Princess Yue."

ooo

_Fin._


	5. Meat and Sarcasm

A/N: I was compelled to write this during a conversation about philisophical conversation. The title, however, came from the same place as the name for the collection: my love for Sokka's little quirky titles. What's with him and titles, anyway?

Dislcaimer: I own nothing.

Happy Reading!

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_Meat and Sarcasm_

What a day. Sokka, in all his sarcasm-filled years, had seen only a handful of days quite like this one. The sky was blue, the breeze was just right, the Firebenders were miles away on their little flaming island with their new Fire Lord. Even the war, with all the pain and the struggle that it had cost them, seemed about a million miles away from his memory when the warrior climbed out of bed and strolled out onto the front steps.

Sokka reached his arms to the sky in a huge yawn, then sighed in content and groggily scratched his side. The apartment was filled with an eerie quiet; never could Sokka remember waking up before Aang – it was probably the monk in him – so why should he start now? Then again, why should he start worrying now? It was a beautiful day.

A sudden voice from behind made him jump in alarm. "Morning, Snoozles."

Spinning around, Sokka saw Toph standing there in the doorway wearing her Earthbending clothes, her hair not yet in the usual style. A smile rose to his face at the sight of her, and he didn't bother hiding it because it would go unseen anyway. Toph was, he'd realized, quite the sight. It weren't as if she held some sort of magnificent beauty (though she was pretty), but somehow her appearance struck him as being just that: beautiful. It was weird, because she was two years younger than he, a whole lot different, and far from a porcelain doll. She was often coated in a good layer of dirt, for one, and her hair was currently sticking up all over the place in every which direction.

"Hey Toph. Aang and Katara still sleeping?"

Toph laughed and replied, "You're about three hours late, Ponytail."

So much for being awake before Aang. "Where are they?" he asked.

"Out."

"Out where?" Boy did Toph love stretching his patience as far as she could.

"How should I know," she answered. Her index finger found its way into her nose. Sokka winced. "Use your imagination."

He'd rather not, quite frankly. Instead of picking a fight with the world's best Earthbender, though, Sokka decided to make peace. He walked past her and into the house. Interested as to what he was doing, Toph turned around as she felt his vibrations through her feet. She took her finger away from her nose and flicked off whatever it was that she had found in there.

"Where ya goin', Snoozles?" she asked with some interest.

"I'm going to get some meat, and then I'm going to do whatever I want," he answered matter-of-factly. "Since Katara and Aang are off in town somewhere, I have the whole day to waste." He shot a quick glance over his shoulder to see that Toph was standing where he had left her, her arms hanging by her sides. "Care to join?"

Nodding, Toph started after him. He looked back ahead and strolled into the main room, where he got himself a slice of smoked beef and headed into the back yard. The Blind Bandit followed suit, pulling her hair back into a haphazard version of her usual bun.

It was around midday now – he hadn't realized just how late he'd slept in. The sun was high in the sky as he strolled across the yard with Toph in tow and a slice of meat in his hand. He put the meat in his mouth, bit down, and tore off a slice. The smoky, salty flavor made his mouth water. Meat. Oh how he _loved_ meat. Meat and sarcasm: the perfect combination.

Once they reached the crest of a grassy slope, Toph flopped back on the grass and turned her unseeing eyes toward the sky. "Have you ever thought that there's more to life than meat and sarcasm?" she asked.

A silence followed as Sokka allowed himself to lay beside her on the grass. He chewed thoughtfully on his last strip of meat, swallowed it, and replied, after a moment, "No. Well yeah, obviously, but not really. I mean, I _care _about other stuff, but meat and sarcasm just about sums me up. It's simple, like me. I'm pretty much a simple guy." He propped himself up on his elbows and looked down at Toph with curiosity. "Why?"

Toph laced her fingers behind her head. A wafting breeze floated by and rustled his shirt.

"I don't know," she answered him, "I'm just thinking about life."

Sokka said nothing. Toph took this as permission to continue her explanation.

"I mean, how long's the war been over for? A year? And here we are, still living in the worst city ever, and there's nothing I can do about it." She looked straight into the sun, but it didn't seem to bother her. "I want to _do_ something with my life – travel or something, anything. Don't you ever want to travel?"

Shrugging, Sokka replied, "I guess so. We traveled a lot during the war, didn't we?"

"Yeah, but did we have to choose Ba Sing Se as our home afterwards?"

Point well proven. Sokka flopped back on the grass beside the Earthbender and wondered what she was listening to at the moment. Was there some sort of thundering animal colony beneath them that was taking her interest, or was she paying attention to the vibration of his body as it struck the ground right beside her? He imagined that the latter must be rather hard to ignore, especially since he she was waiting for his reply.

"Maybe we could travel the world again," he said in a considering tone, folding his hands on his stomach and sighing. "Like a vacation away from vacation."

Toph gave an appreciative chuckle. "This is the worst vacation I've ever been on," she mused. "Well, except for your vacation at the Library."

This time Sokka laughed. Another breeze went by and he took in the sweet smell of somebody cooking from down the street.

"You smell that?" asked Toph.

"It's meat," replied Sokka with a sigh of craving. "My meat senses are tingling."

He suddenly sat up, startling Toph into propping herself up on her elbows and fixing her eyes just past his face.

"You hungry?" she asked, somewhat amused.

Sokka stepped forward and offered his hand to the Blind Bandit. "As always. Come on, let's get something to eat."

Toph stared. "Are you offering me your hand or are you just standing in front of me?" she asked.

"Both."

Toph held her hand up and Sokka grasped it in his own, marveling at the feeling of her hand beneath his own, a hand roughened from the earth. Fighting down that strange sensation in the pit of his stomach, he pulled her to her feet and they started off down the hill in the direction of the town. On the way, Sokka let his mind wonder from his destination to where he was right now, and who he was with. A small laugh escaped him. Toph didn't miss it.

"Thinking about meat?" she asked.

"Among other things," he replied. Then he shot her a sidelong glance before turning his eyes back to the blue sky. "Just admiring the scenery."

The faintest of smiles crossed her face. She took his last comment to be one of extreme irony. "Good old Sokka, always the meat and sarcasm guy."

Sokka shrugged, though she could not see it. She didn't need to know what he had been thinking about just then. For now, he was happy enough being the meat and sarcasm guy.

It was, after all, pretty much his whole identity.

ooo

_Fin._

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A/N: So the questions are:

- Where have Katara and Aang escaped to?

- Is Toph really oblivious? (In this story, at least)

- Will Sokka ever get his meat?


	6. The Most Epic Romance

A/N: Okay, I wanted to keep a balance between romance fics and non-romance, but I couldn't help but post this. Enjoy!

Also, I forgot the date 1-23-06, which happens to be my one-year anniversary for this lovely site. _–Bursts into tears and hugs computer –_ Oh FFNet, how could I forget our anniversary?

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Happy Reading!

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_The Most Epic Romance_

They say that you never forget your first true love, and this held true for Sokka. Never would he ever forget the good times and the bad, the turmoil that they were both hurdled through from the beginning, and the sacrifices that that he had made to keep the love alive.

In the beginning, from the very first time they met, Sokka knew that he was in love. It wasn't a sort of silly infatuation, a trifling moment that lasts a few months and then fades, but the real deal. He knew right at the beginning that he would make any sacrifice that he had to, if only to keep this romance alive.

Time came and went. The war kept them all at the very end of their ropes, but still Sokka managed to hold on. Through famine and through death, Sokka held on to what was dear to him with hopes for a better tomorrow, in which he could live and love freely. Aang didn't approve of the relationship. Toph found it to be pathetic and amusing, almost childish. Suki didn't really have much of an opinion, but that was because she was hardly ever around. Katara thought of it as a sort of joke. Her mockery, while not kind, was not cruel either. She, too, thought that it was just a phase that he would someday grow out of, but it had developed into something more. Much more.

Over time, all sorts of struggles and suffering were forced upon them. Sokka became more attached and tried to break it off before it got too serious, but thus far his attempts had been to no avail. Women came and went through his life like fleeting segments, clips of the years passed, but still nothing changed. Even now, after everything from marriage to children, from death to life, he could never forget or give up his first true love. And he didn't want to, and this was for one reason:

To give up meat was to give up life itself.

ooo

_Fin_

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A/N: This ficlet was inspired by Goddess of Lame 2.0 for her comment about a Sokka/Meat scene, so thank that person if you like this. Light _me _on fire if you don't.

This is possibly the shortest in the collection thus far, but I couldn't help but write a lovey-dovey Sokka/Meat oneshot for you all. I hope I haven't scarred you too badly if you weren't expecting it, and I hope I didn't bore you if you figured it out beforehand. Thanks for reading!


	7. Kiss of Death

A/N: This ficlet, while short, came to me as easily as can be. I enjoyed writing it, so enjoy reading it!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Happy Reading!

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_Kiss of Death_

His first real kiss had been with the Princess of the Northern Water Tribe. The kiss had been unexpected, to say the least, seeing as he'd just finished bashing himself for being a 'Southern peasant'. She'd grabbed him, pulled him in, and kissed him. And boy, had _that_ been something wonderful! Yue was sweet and kind and… passionate? Yes. Her _kiss_ was not necessarily that, but she herself had been. Passionate for her people and passionate for life and loyalty. This passion carried her through her everyday life, through her duties as Princess and through her engagement. In the end, though, Sokka's hopes and wishes that he could spend forever with this woman faded in a blinding white light. The Princess, who he had had fallen for instantly, died in his arms. He'd felt her body go cold, the way that the dead do, until she'd disappeared. Then, when he'd thought that he would never see her again, she appeared in a glowing form. She shared with him a ghostly kiss before leaving him for the last time.

Time passed, and Sokka was reunited with an old friend. As much as it hurt to think of Yue, he knew that he would have to move on. His kiss with Suki had been just as unexpected, but this time it was he that launched the surprise attack. In addition, it had been far different than his kiss with Yue. Suki was a warrior – aggressive, strong – and he had been taken aback by how different her kiss was. Not that it was any less amazing, of course, but it was just different. Suki didn't die in his arms as Yue had, but it did not make her death any easier to accept. When they had returned to Kyoshi and the leader had told them of the female warrior's battle with Azula, he had wept. At her funeral, he leaned over and placed one last kiss on her painted lips with vow never to love again.

This vow, however valiant, could not withstand the test of time. Little by little, the strong-willed Earthbender picked at his hardened exterior until she finally broke through and reached his heart. Toph's kiss had been the most unexpected of all; she'd thrown herself at him and kissed him, though her target was missed and she'd kissed the side of his face. An awkward laugh later, he'd gotten off the ground, helped her up, and kissed her in return. In the next months, he shared many kisses with her, some innocent and others fiery, and a handful ended abruptly with a surprised yell from Katara or Aang. Even in those times Sokka couldn't help but smile, for it seemed that he had finally overcome death and reached love once and for all.

He knelt on the ground in the Fire Lord's chamber, oblivious to the eyes watching him from every direction as he held the cold Earthbender close to his chest. Meaningless prayers and words and curses spilled from his mouth as rapidly as the tears spilled from his eyes, for he knew now what had come to be. With a shuddery breath, he lowered his head and placed a final, lingering kiss on her lips as the rest of her life slipped away and left him with nothing. He let his head fall back and asked aloud what he had done to deserve such a cruel punishment.

Now, as much as time had passed, he still does not let go. He knows that if he allows himself to get close to any woman ever again, the consequences will be dire. He knows not what he has done to deserve what he has been cursed with, but he knows that he must live his life alone if he wants those he loves to be safe. Because that is the life of a cursed man, a marked man.

Sokka of the Water Tribe, cursed with the kiss of death.

ooo

_Fin._

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A/N: Angsty, I know. to make matters weirder, I winced when the Document Manager said that this story had 666 words. D:

Anyway, I heard the phrase 'kiss of death' and it made me laugh. Poor Sokka - his girlfriends always seem to die or vanish._  
_


	8. Toph o Vision

A/N: This was fun to write. There are subtle hints of Tokka, but it's (for once) not fluffy romance. It's more of a thoughtful short story with some interesting comedy mixed in. You'll see what I mean.

Also, I was going to post this in "Oneshot Shorts", but "Cactus Juice" wasn't getting enough attention and this story was from Sokka's point of view.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Happy Reading!

* * *

_Toph-o-Vision_

Sokka watched as Toph threw a ball against the wall, let it bounce off onto the floor, and spring up into her hand. The tap of the ball on the wood was the only sound that reverberated through the otherwise empty house. Both Aang and Katara were out at the moment, he with Appa and she with the generals, plotting the upcoming invasion. Mouth turned downward into a slight frown, brows furrowed, Sokka's eyes followed the round, bouncy object as Toph continued to throw it from her spot on the ground, her feet propped lazily on the wall and her head on a puffy pillow.

"How…?" Fading off into nothing, his question ended almost as soon as it began.

The rhythmic beat of the ball as it made its round didn't stop as its conductor said in a semi-aloof fashion, "What?"

Sokka shifted, pushed himself away from the nearby table, flopped back onto the ground. The apartment was spacious enough, comfortable enough for him to sit around on the ground without any sort of padding beneath him. The food was good, too, come to think of it. All in all, the only problem Sokka had with the place was the Dai Lee, which continued to follow them around, even after they'd spoken to the King.

As he surveyed the girl in front of him, he asked, "How can you tell where the ball is when it's in the air?"

The ball soared off path a slight bit, but Toph stretched up her arm a few inches and snatched it out of the air. "I can't," she answered.

"Then how do you know where it's going to be?" he asked, curious. He rolled over onto his front, grabbed a nearby pillow, and stuck it under his chin for support. His arms were crossed, almost as if hugging the pillow around his head.

Toph squeezed the ball and dropped it on her stomach, mulling over the best way to describe the way she saw. It always struck Sokka as amusing that Toph could be so sarcastic at one moment and almost enjoyable to talk to in the next.

"I guess… I measure it," she began slowly. "In my head. I feel where the ball hits the ceiling, and then the floor, and I can sort of tell how fast it's going and where it's going to end up."

"Really?"

"No, I just made all that up," Toph snapped, suddenly sarcastic again as she snatched up the ball from her stomach. A lopsided grin came to his face and he fought a laugh.

"Sorry," he apologized. "I mean, that's sort of cool. I mean, it's not cool that you're blind, but –"

"Yeah, I get it."

Now a silence engulfed the room. He didn't feel particularly awkward lying there because he was, for once, at ease; watching Toph squeeze the ball in one of her strong hands was almost amusing.

In an attempt to start up a conversation again, Sokka began, "It must be useful as an Earthbender to be able to see that kind of stuff. You can detect it with quick logic."

"Yup. Pretty Much."

"So what can you see? I mean, like stuff on the surface that is there, but us seeing people don't notice. How's it useful in everyday life?"

At this, Toph frowned and, again, seemed to ponder her explanation. Then, he noticed with a sudden leap in heart rate, the Blind Bandit – he often thought of her as such when thinking of her rocklike stability – blushed a deep shade of crimson. Eagerly, Sokka propped himself up on his elbows and grinned. "What?"

Toph set her jaw and began throwing the ball again at the wall. "Nothing," she answered. "I was just thinking."

"Care to share?"

"No."

Sokka rolled his eyes. "How bad can it be?" he asked.

The rhythmic sound of the ball's movement started to beat itself into his brain again as Toph settled into her mode. She shrugged and replied, "It's not _bad_. It's just... I don't know." She laughed to herself and finished, "Well, I suppose it's a little awkward. I can see… things… that can't normally be seen. Because _most_ people wear clothes."

A million possibly awkward things came to the mind of the warrior just then. The corner of his mouth twitched slightly downwards. Yet, of all awkward things, one in particular clicked into his engineering brain just then.

"_Ah_."

This time, Toph's smirk was unmistakable. Sokka, now suddenly feeling very self aware, got up off the ground.

"Wow," he said uncomfortably, scratching the back of his neck with one hand and wiping his other sweaty hand on his shirt, "That _is_ awkward."

ooo

_Fin._

* * *

A/N: Oh Toph, the things you know but don't tell anybody. I figured that this aspect of her 'sight' would actually be canon, as, when we see her in 'Toph-o-vision', we see muscles and all that jazz. So it makes sense for her to see clothes and, well, everything else. Please excuse my over-analytic mind.


	9. Sokka's Rambling Thoughts

A/N: I wrote this yesterday, thinking that FFnet would be nice to me and not be overloaded with readers. But nooo. Now that I'm over it, here's my latest installment for _Cactus Juice_.

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Happy Reading!

* * *

_Sokka's Rambling Thoughts_

Okay, okay, I know what you must be thinking right now. I'm irresponsible, inconsiderate, and I have no idea of what I've done. Well, while I am, in fact, irresponsible, I do realize the hugeness of what I've done. And so does she, so we shouldn't even be having this conversation.

First, I think it's important to notice that all this has taken me off the list of eligible bachelors. What can I say? I know this is probably going to earn me a kick in the ribs later on, but I just had to throw it out there. After traveling the world on more than one occasion, it makes a guy realize just how many women there are out there, in all different shapes and sizes and colors. Well, I'm here to tell you that I made the best choice I possibly could have, without even realizing that I had made the choice at the time. So, to all you lovely ladies out there: you have my sincere condolences.

Now onto the biggest accusation: my irresponsibility. I understand what I did, I really do! And I can assure you that my dear sister has told me a million times about how I don't think before I act. As much as I'd like to pin this whole thing on my natural curiosity, that probably wouldn't be the most appropriate thing to do. I'm twenty years old, and a grown man as far as standards go. It was a spur-of-the-moment sort of thing for the pair of us. An accident, yes, but not a mistake. For she and I both, it's a welcome experience, and one that I'm looking forward to. Is my positive attitude shining through? I certainly hope so, because I'm really trying not to be afraid.

Alright, now for the controversial part. There's been a lot of talk, both behind my back and to my face, about the risks of our little situation. What these people don't seem to understand is that we can't control what happens, or what has happened. I don't know the exact chances, but I have a hunch that the chances of blindness being passed down are not as small as I'd hoped. Either way, we're both ready for it. Neither of us have any fear about this whole thing.

Well, okay. I admit that I _am_ afraid. Mostly I try to keep my head up and act brave for her sake more than mine. She doesn't seem bothered at all by this whole thing, but I'm sure that she's afraid underneath her solid exterior. Then again, I could also be wrong – I've had to physically restrain her from going to Earth Rumble tournaments on more than one occasion, and the bruises that I had to deal with afterwards weren't much fun.

So yeah, I'm afraid. A lot of the time I can't sleep, especially on the nights when she's not right next to me, where I can make sure she's okay. You see, a lot of the time I go with Aang and Katara on their little trips to the Fire Nation, just to make sure Fire Lord Zuko isn't pushing around his uncle too much. And, as much as she wants to join us, she knows she has to stay home. I want to stay home, too, now that I think about it. In the beginning, I would go just to get a breath of fresh air from all this stuff. But now, after a short wedding and a lot of talking, I can tell you that I regret leaving her side for even a day. Yes, I still go on the trips, but only if I really need to. Mostly I like to stay home with my wife and take care of her. Or, rather, I try to take care of her; just not too much. It's one of those things I learned from Suki: girls can take care of themselves, and Toph is no exception. I try to help her, she takes good care of herself, and I get to lounge around and eat meat. It's a very serious time for us.

Although, I must say that you can never really laugh until you've seen a pregnant woman Earthbend. Now that is something I _really_ enjoy.

ooo

_Fin._

* * *

A/N: Well, I tried to make this serious, but it didn't work out that way. Sokka just isn't a serious guy, anyway. :D


	10. Tickets

A/N: I debated for a long time about perspective and voice and stuff, and finally settled on this. I think it's not too bad for something written in one sitting. Besides, _Cactus Juice_ needs more love!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Happy Reading!

* * *

_Tickets  
_

I opened the door and looked around the room. My apartment, lit only by the setting sun, was silent, save for the sounds of congested breathing drifting over from a mat on the floor. I smirked, stepped inside, and closed the door behind me. No reaction whatsoever came from the sleeping figure, which was barely visible beneath a mountain of blankets. The person just happened to be Toph Bei Fong, Earthbender extraordinaire, and she just happened to be ill. So ill, in fact, that she hadn't been able to enter the World Earth Rumble Championship.

Needless to say, she'd been upset. I couldn't blame her; she'd have won if only she could _enter_ the thing. But instead of missing out on the fun completely, she'd sent me out to get a pair of tickets so we could "critique the performance" (not that I know very much about Bending). The championship hadn't been held in Ba Sing Se since long before the war ended about four years ago. And now, well, I had to break the news to her.

"Toph."

Crossing the room, I reached over and shook her shoulder just enough to rouse her. She grunted and turned over. One of her hands came up and touched the side of my face, palm-down; I always felt awkward when she did that. I know she does it for a good reason, but I still feel that weird shudder down my spine every time she does it, which is whenever I wake her up and she's not in a bad mood. She pulled her hand away a few moments later.

Her voice was weak when she finally spoke. "Snoozles, is that you?" she asked.

"Yeah," I answered. "It's me."

Instantly she perked up, but whether it was because of my presence or what I was supposed to be carrying, I didn't know. Toph sat up with some difficulty and wiped her runny nose on my favorite blanket. I winced.

"Did you get the tickets?" she asked, voice rasping comically.

The impulse to laugh rose up in my chest, but I swallowed it back. "Well, it's sort of a long story," I said.

Her eyes snapped open and I felt myself cringe. The wrath of Toph Bei Fong could be beyond gruesome.

"You didn't get them?" she said, both infuriated and dumbfounded. "But I gave you my passport and everything!"

I threw up my hands defensively, even though she couldn't see it. "Hey Toph, let's talk about this. I think I'm the one with the injustice done to them here! I waited in line between two smelly guys for _five hours_ to get tickets to the show of a lifetime, but I was disappointed. I wanted to be able to see the action, the insane fighting!" I clenched my fists and threw punches into the air. Toph's frown had deepened in the meantime. "We could have been in the front row! Close enough to see the sweat – or hear the breathing, in your case – but _no_. The show's going to be the show of a lifetime, and it's sold out!"

Toph looked positively livid. The way she looked, with her hair all over the place and her face all sickly-looking, I wanted to run in the opposite direction. "I can't believe this!" she exclaimed, pounding one fist on the table beside us. "So that's it, then? No tickets?"

"I wanted front row," I answered.

"Yeah, well I wanted to go in general!" she spat.

Smirking, I reached into my pocket and pulled out two small scrolls. I slid them across the table until they touched her clamped fist.

"What is this?" She asked tersely, picking up the papers.

"Well, I told you I wanted front row," I said in what I believed was a reasonable tone, "but we're just going to have to settle for second row. Toph, we're going to the World Earth Rumble Championship!"

The next thing I knew, Toph had screamed, leapt from her mat, and tackled me to the ground.

"Yes!" she exclaimed, wrapping her arms around my waist and delivering a bone-crushing hug. I was suddenly glad that she was sick, because I'd have been crushed if she weren't. "Sokka, how did you get second row?"

I laughed and gently pried the Earthbender off of me before she could break one of my ribs. "I thought you'd know by now," I said. "That Bei Fong passport does miracles."

"No, Sokka," Toph answered, now grinning and refusing to be pulled away. "_You_ do miracles." She paused and then added thoughtfully, "Now if only you could get me in the show…"

"Nice try, Toph."

"It was worth a shot."

ooo

_Fin._

* * *

A/N: I hope they were in-character. Note that they're about four years older than in the series right now (I said it in there, but you may have missed it), so they've grown up a little. I don't know if they're married or not, and nor do I know where Katara and Aang are at the moment. Thanks for reading!


	11. The Tokka Fifty

**Warning: If you're reading this, I assume you've seen everything up to and through "Sokka's Master". **

A/N: So I stole this idea to make fifty Tokka (Wow, it's so hard to write Tokka without CAPSLOCK, seeing as when I type the word I'm usually ranting) sentences with random words. So I took out my trusty old dictionary, opened to a random page with my eyes closed, and jabbed at my word with one finger before opening my eyes again. The word, as fate would have it, was "virgin". It was at that point that I knew this was going to be a looooong process. Hah.

This was originally intended to go into "Oneshot Shorts", but "Cactus Juice" can always use a bit more love

So, in the end, I think it came out all right! Some I like more than others, but that's only normal. The words are sorted by alphabetization, because the balance of genres and topics was much better that way, for some reason. The numbers represent the order in which I wrote them. I hope you like them (or, at least, I certainly hope you like at least _one_, since there are fifty).

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Happy Reading!

* * *

_The Tokka Fifty—Alphabetized_

25. Algid

If she was cold in the South Pole, she wouldn't think twice about announcing her lack of a real jacket, in which case he wouldn't think twice about unbuttoning his and pulling her in to share the heat.

35. Apathy

She'd said that she hadn't cared while he was gone, off learning the way of the sword… but she did, she really did.

12. Apron

When his sister shot down the idea of him showing Toph the beautiful view of the Southern Water Tribe docks, he went along with it anyway and, upon accidentally making a handful of careless comments about the view, discovered just how cold the water was.

41. Articulate

He had slipped up and called her "Suki" once; after she was done with him, it would never happen again.

6. Bloated

Grinning, he ran his hands over her swollen abdomen and marveled at the feeling of small kicks coming from within.

36. Concupiscence

Hearts beating a synchronized symphony, harsh breath in her ear, arms and legs entangled together; outside, the snow fell in thick sheets, but neither had much trouble keeping warm.

16. Conundrum

She'd expected the apologetic Sokka to laugh when she compared him to his boomerang, but instead found an awkward silence as he stood awkwardly before her, scratching his head in confusion.

19. Corybantic

When she became frenzied, he could that he couldn't help but pace, worried, alongside her.

18. Costly

Shopping with him was always an adventure; what he purchased was usually expensive, but she could always count on him to make sure she looked nice.

13. Dead

How could this be?; He had always known that she was—though she never acted it—small, but never was she tinier than when he held her unmoving figure in his arms.

33. Denouement

After his long, incoherent explanation of the science to why he felt the way he did about her, all she could manage was a nonplussed, "_Huh?_"

42. Discalced

For some reason, he hated to see her wearing shoes; he loved her aura of freedom, and how could she be free when the symbol of her liberty was covered up?

14. Embrangle

One second he was laughing with her, and the next he was flirting with Ty Lee, and then a second later he was back at Suki's bedside, holding her hand as she struggled to overcome her injuries; either he believed in polygamy—not unlikely, from what she'd heard about his past—or he really enjoyed confusing her.

2. Epiphany

It wasn't until Katara noticed just how tightly she clutched his arm while flying that she realized there might be more to their relationship than platonic sarcasm.

8. Eulogy

Fingers trembling so badly that he could hardly read the words on his scroll, he opened his mouth and found that words would not come; the greatest speech in the world could never express what tears already had.

38. Fail

Afterwards, he would make a mental note that she was allergic to Panda Lilies.

31. Fantod

"Are you really that blind?" she shouted at his left shoulder, "I love you, you idiot!"

10. Flirtatious 

He would laugh; she would smirk and maybe punch him in the shoulder; he would wince, but nevertheless continue telling her in that tone whatever he was saying; she would banter back, words quick and sharp; Katara would roll her eyes and go back to reading her scroll.

40. Floccinaucinihilipilification

She can't remember when, but at some point he'd begun trying to get her to fall in love with him, and she would laugh at his attempts; wasn't it pointless for him to be trying so hard when he'd had her from the start?

17. Force

There were times where she wanted to Earthbend his feet into the ground, just so he could never leave her.

26. Hoyden

Her hair was down, a smudge of dirt on her nose while she threw her rocklike behavior to the side for one night and danced; his mouth ran dry and he, scowling, suddenly wished that he had asked her to dance first.

48. Hidrosis

She had dozed off in his arms, her sweaty palm flat on his equally sweaty chest, as if to keep in check the beating of his heart; he pressed his lips against her damp forehead, to which her hair was plastered, adjusted his arms around her waist, and closed his eyes with a sigh of content.

47. Hyperbole

Sometimes he made her so angry that she wanted to crush him with a thousand rocks, and other times he would make her laugh so hard that she would surely never feel anger again.

7. Incline

It were times like these, when tempers flared and voices climbed to the point of attracting attention from bystanders, that he thought he wouldn't be able to take it much more.

43. Inveigh

He hated saying that he'd snapped at her—after all, they typically got along better even than Aang and Katara—but he had, and now he could only bury his face in his hands and wait for her to let him out of the rain.

34. Kismet

She was Oma and he was Shu: thrown together amidst a war, and one of the greatest factors of its end; she just wished that he hadn't had to follow the story line quite so well.

9. Lambent

He looked into her eyes and saw in them the reflection of the torch's flickering flame; perhaps the view amounted to more than just dancing firelight.

49. Macarism

The day she told him she was pregnant was the day the entire city found out; his excited exclamation rang through the streets, and could only be matched in loudness by her surprised shriek as he scooped her up in an armadillo-bear hug.

37. Mansuetude

He would never believe that she could be gentle if he hadn't been the object of that very trait.

20. Nonsensical

He liked pointy objects and she liked to play in the dirt; needless to say, the attraction was inevitable.

32. Nosocomephrenia 

He reached out in the dark—they had offered to keep the light on for him, but he'd insisted that they shut them off so she could sleep, even though it didn't matter either way—and laced his cold fingers in her warm ones; he scooted his chair in, put his head down on the edge of her hospital bed, and prayed to Yue that her skin didn't go cold.

11. Obdormition

He didn't mind when she fell asleep on his shoulder, honestly, but when his arm began to tingle with numbness, he had to choose feeling over cuddling.

28. Obtuse

She had forgotten at which point he had begun to ask if she liked Aang, but it was at that point when she decided he was too stupid for her to bother answering.

24. Oscitate 

She was the only one immune to the contagious yawn, which he rather thought was a shame; when she yawned, her whole body arched, hands in the air, and he'd always loved to watch her stretch.

4. Osculate

After listening to him stammer on for a few moments about his feelings for her, she finally helped him get his point across by grabbing him around the collar and pulling him into a forceful kiss.

50. Over

He pulled her close as the Fire Nation slowly faded into the abyss, relished in her warmth when the deck of the ship was so cold; "I can't believe it's finally over, after 100 years," he breathed, and then added in his subconscious, _'Now we can start this life over from scratch, just you and me.'_

21. Overcast

Ever since he'd seen the sun with Toph, being with Suki only seemed to bring him clouds.

22. Placebo

While Katara and Aang poked their heads around the corner and watched him work on his swordcraft, she leaned against the wall, closed her eyes, and _felt_ him work; it was the only available prescription for the sickness that had begun to take her over.

39. Reborbative

She had to admit, she'd felt somewhat offended when he'd chosen his own sister over her to play the role of his wife when Aang had earned himself a parent-teacher conference.

46. Recondite

The idea eludes him, is more obscure than he ever thought imaginable; still, not being able to grasp reality did not mean that she had not, without more than a nod of her head, left him for good.

45. Saturnine

She was not one for excessive grinning or a friendly demeanor in general, but that was all right; it made her rare smile all the more wonderful.

29. Serendipity 

Later in life, he would indulge the fact that falling in love with her had been an accident, but it didn't change the fact that he had tripped.

23. Sidekick

After all, in a world of heroes, sidekicks needed to stick together.

1. Smite

When she was angry, the only thing that hurt more than her words was her fist.

3. Syllogism

He had implied that they might be better off going to lunch without Katara and Aang anyway, and she had decided beforehand that she'd rather spend some time with him than have to listen to Katara fuss over Aang (who would be fine in the end, she'd decided after observing him); therefore, they were actually going on a date, right?

15. Taboo

Not even the frown of Lao Bei Fong could keep him from reaching out and tasting the forbidden fruit that was her kiss.

27. Temperamental

"Toph's patience is easy to describe," he'd informed the alarmed bystander as he brushed off his tunic as though he had not just been shoved to the ground, "Push once and get a snappy retort; push twice and your mouth is full of dirt."

5. Touch

His fingers would brush her shoulder in concern when her face flushed pink, but for some reason—he couldn't, for the life of him, figure out why—it only seemed to make the shade darken.

30. Virgin

She was pure like the earth, so inviolate that he was almost afraid to touch her; luckily, he mused as he watched her sleeping form, she had always been pretty persuasive.

44. Writhen

He would hug her tightly, and it was at these moments when she wondered if outside watchers could tell whose arms were whose.

ooo

_Fin._

* * *

A/N: My computer rejected some of the words I used, but I'm trusting the internets for this one. My favorite word is "floccinaucinahilipilification", so I just had to stick it in there somewhere!

I hope you liked at least one, and thanks for reading! Any criticism is a welcome thing. _  
_


	12. Confliction

A/N: So I've been in a bit of a writing slump (you've been hearing this a lot from me lately, sadly), and I've been busy. But I started this little ficlet a few days ago, forgot about it, and then realized that it had a lot of potential. So I finished it.

P.S. For those of you who are reading my AU "Parallel Lives", know that I haven't given up! I'm just struggling with the first chapter.

P.P.S. I now have a LiveJournal that I use for Ava-ranting! If you have an LJ, feel free to stop by. Here's the url; just replace the (dot) with and actual dot:

invaderk(dot)livejournal(dot)com

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Happy Reading!

* * *

_Confliction_

"_We're very sorry, Sir…"_

Yeah well, he was sorry, too. Ever since he'd heard the news that Toph was pregnant, he'd had this image in his mind, this sort of timeless fantasy that he, Sokka, soldier from the Water Tribe, would soon have his own little warrior to train, his own son or daughter with whom he could share the love of meat and the feeling of a new boomerang. A child that he, in all his love for irony, would teach the proper facial expressions to match each sarcastic comment he'd crafted over the years. All of this planning and fantasizing came down to this, this awful revelation.

"_We're very sorry..."_

Sokka slid the door open and crossed the room in the dark, stumbling over more than one miscellaneous item that lay strewn upon the floor. Neither he nor Toph had ever enjoyed cleaning; Katara would make a feeble attempt if she stopped over, but everything would end up on the floor again anyway. As he made his way through the dark, he began to set things, these objects he kept stumbling over, in their proper places, or at least guess as to where they belonged. Why, he wasn't quite sure, but something about the desperation in his situation made him need to do something—_anything_—with his hands, and so he cleaned during his journey across the room. Actually, though the thought in his mind was fleeting, he was trying to sidestep the truth of his situation, delay his confrontation with that which he could avoid no more than he could deny—

"Ouch!"

Horrified by his very sudden, very _loud_, outburst, Sokka clamped his hands over his mouth, his body going rigid in the dark. Toph had been sleeping in just the room over, but he realized that he had probably awoken her with his outburst. He cursed fluently under his breath at the chair that had evidently jumped out and attacked his right knee, but all cursing stopped once he reached the window side of the room.

"_Sorry..."_

Gosh, if the words of those medics kept running through his mind like that, he was going to take his machete to something (or, if he felt like it, someone; nobody in particular, but someone). He approached the small crib by the window as one would approach a wild animal, only to back away again, wincing.

"Come on Sokka, pull yourself together." His hands—clammy and cold, which was very unusual—ran over his face in a calming manner. "This is stupid—you're being stupid. Just stop thinking about it so much."

Still, when he turned around again, that sinking feeling rushed back into the pit of his stomach. Surely, he reasoned, this wasn't how he was supposed to feel. This awful dread and despair couldn't be _normal_; he couldn't recall Aang ever mentioning this particular combination of emotions when describing the feeling of having his first child. Aang's words had mostly consisted of "amazing" and "love" and "perfect".

But how could this—_she_, he corrected himself—be perfect when she was so _flawed_? So cursed by this awful plague?

A sliver of moonlight fell across the crib—_How ironic_, he couldn't help but think—and gave the illusion that the little tuft of hair on his baby girl's head was actually white; the sight did not help to cure his unease. Sokka dropped to his knees in order to get a better look at the sleeping infant within, the wooden bars surrounding the crib clenched in his white-knuckled grip. He rested his forehead against the bars and allowed a quiet sigh to escape from within his chest.

"She has my eyes," he breathed, then reconsidered his words. "Kind of."

True enough. While the infant slept at the moment, her little chest rising and falling in time, he knew that beneath her closed eyelids were a pair of stunning blue eyes, eyes that were clouded over with this awful disease, this _blindness_.

"_We're very sorry..."_

The apology went from his memory to the tip of his tongue, and he had said it before he could stop himself. "I'm sorry, Nikka. _Spirits,_ I'm sorry," he choked. "I didn't know—we didn't—it wasn't transferable. We were _so sure_."

"Sokka?"

"…_Sir and Ma'am…"_

He didn't stand up or turn around at the sound of his wife's voice. His eyes were glued to the little figure just inches from his face, the figure that smelled like clean soap and, now that his eyes had adjusted to the dark, looked like a bundle of blankets with a face.

Toph made her way through the darkness much quicker than he had and rested her hands on his shoulders from behind. Under normal circumstances he would have reacted to the gesture, taking it as incentive to maybe grab her around the knees and try to knock her off her feet—it was something he'd tried to do on occasion, before she became pregnant, because catching Toph off guard was a challenge with often hilarious (though sometimes painful) results. Now he did nothing, and it was not until she addressed his very concern (or one of them, at least), that he spoke.

"It's not your fault, Sokka; there's nothing we could have done." She paused thoughtfully before adding in a low voice, "Actually, it's more my fault than yours; I—"

"No, don't say that." He shrugged her hands from his shoulders and tore his eyes from the sleeping infant long enough to climb to his feet. That prickling feeling in his eyes was no matter; the only one who would be able to see the forming tears was he. Instead of mulling over whether or not Toph would be able to tell—even if she couldn't_ see_, it didn't matter because she'd seen him cry about a million times between the time they'd met and now—he busied himself with furthering his statement. "They told us we'd be okay, that in your case it'd just been some sort of freak accident or something. You're right; there's nothing we could have done."

Nevertheless, Toph looked unconvinced. She frowned and grasped the edge of the crib with both hands. "I don't understand. How could this happen, Sokka? After everything. And what if she's not an Earthbender? How will she manage?"

The thought was almost too terrible for Sokka to fully comprehend. And either way, he presumed, even if Nikka _was_ an Earthbender, he would lose out. If she wasn't, then everyone would be unhappy. If she was, however, then surely she would bond to her mother more than he. What could he, a non-Bender with the ability to see, offer to a daughter who would be—?

"What is it?"

Sokka jumped slightly and turned to his wife, who had evidently picked up on a leap in his heart rate. He fidgeted with his wolf's tail for a moment, ashamed that he had felt a pang of jealousy, even if it was a small one.

"Well, if she _is_ and Earthbender, then you'll—" Sokka began, but paused to conceal a sniffle besides a rather violent cough. "What do I have to give her, Toph? What if she…" he trailed off, again feeling that bout of shame and terror.

Toph was persistent, her voice somehow still forceful even when she spoke in a whisper. "What if she _what_?"

"…What if she loves you more?"

There, he had said it. His primary worry, the thought that had plagued him from the moment the medics had delivered the news, was out in the open, and he wasn't sure whether he was emotionally stable enough for Toph to hear it. Even Toph seemed struck by the enormity of the idea. Her eyebrows furrowed, the frown deepening until Sokka was sure it would get stuck on her face.

"That's a terrible thing to say," she breathed. The sound of choked tears in her throat made Sokka wince. "How could you believe…? Sokka, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard!"

For some reason, he had half expected her to burst into tears and hug him, so when her fist connected with his shoulder he was not totally prepared for it; he let out another loud exclamation of pain and grabbed his arm where her fist had made contact. In front of them, Nikka stirred in her sleep and whimpered before falling silent once more.

Sokka, in a desperate attempt to save himself from more damage, apologized. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I shouldn't have said that. It's just—" he sighed, defeated and returning once more to a state of dejection, "—everything seems so… I don't know. I just feel so _wrong_, and so _scared_."

This time Toph did hug him; her arms wound around his waist and squeezed lightly. "I know, I feel the same way. We'll overcome it eventually, but right now I'm just shocked. And scared. And hurt." She paused, and when he could not bring himself to respond she asked, "What does she look like? Is she as beautiful as she sounded?"

His head tilting to one side and leaning on hers, Sokka responded in a hushed tone, "She's… perfect. She's perfect."

At this, Toph laughed quietly. "How could she not be? She's the daughter of Toph, Earthbender extraordinaire!" she joked.

"Gee, thanks for the credit, Toph," Sokka deadpanned, though a small smile had risen to his face. He blinked, and the tears that had been in his eyes for the last minutes finally trickled down his face.

And although Toph couldn't see his sadness, she always had that way about her, that knowing sense of how he was feeling. He'd always admired that, though admittedly it sort of creeped him out sometimes, too. She kissed his jawline, right below the ear, then turned her unseeing eyes back in the general direction of her daughter.

"We'll find a way," she murmured, pausing to wipe a tear from her own eye. "We always do."

"I hope so."

He'd said the words with some uncertainty, but somehow in his heart he knew that she was right. They'd faced the worst times together, had they not? What was this but another hurdle to jump, another crossroads where they could either do nothing or do their best to make it work? And they would, he hoped. Although the sadness in his chest and the words of those medics told him otherwise, that little bundle that he, Sokka, had created, reassured him that he would do his best, and that his best would be enough. Sokka heaved a shuddery sigh and embraced his wife. Surely his best would be enough.

It would have to be, for it was all he had to give.

"_We're very sorry, Sir, Ma'am, but your daughter is blind."_

ooo

_Fin._

* * *

A/n: Gosh, why can't I just write happy things? I'm not even a sad person. What the hell. I think, like I did with the whole "memory loss" theme, become engulfed in an idea. I love the thought that Sokka would feel inferior is his daughter turned out to be a blind Earthbender. It opens a door for lots of angst and character development (both of which I love). I also tried to add a side serving of fluff, though not enough to make you want to gag (I hope).

EDIT: Thanks to Isabel over on KF forums, she pointed out something that I hadn't really considered to be as important as it turned out to be. In other words, the way I portrayed Sokka at one point. She says:  
"I should think that he would know by now that being blind isn't necessarily a disadvantage and even if Nikka wasn't born a bender, well, in the fic he thinks about being blind as something so awful, so horrible. A handicap that couldn't possibly be dealt with and that would keep him from enjoying his parenthood. Oh, besides...there is this bit "This awful dread and despair couldn't be normal; he couldn't recall Aang ever mentioning this particular combination of emotions when describing the feeling of having his first child." This, bit, it's practically as if he HATED the thought of being a parent to blind kid, especially because right after that the words that get OPPOSED to it, from Aang's perspective, included 'love'."

She was right, of course. Recognizing my error, I responded:

"Yes. I was afraid that the reader might think exactly what you thought, which is entirely my fault (obviously). Throughout writing the whole thing, I was like, "Hmm... this kind of sounds like he doesn't love her; NOT GOOD".  
What I was trying to convey was his sense of panic, that Sokka loved her so much that he wondered why he felt so worried and stuff. You know how parents immediately jump to the worst conclusions about their kids. "Oh no, my kid has autism! He'll have such a hard time with life!" The thing is, Sokka didn't know if she was going to be an Earthbender or not, and immediately concluded that if she wasn't, then "how will she ever survive?""  
And now you know what was really going on when I wrote this. Yay, and many thanks to Izzy. Now if only I could figure out a way to portray what I meant!

Thanks for reading! Criticism is always welcome.


	13. Impaired Love

A/N: I wrote this during a sleep-deprived and amused state, and thought that you might like something different than my usual topics. It was no an attempt to change the world via writing, nor was it an effort to develop character; actually, it basically undeveloped character, so yay for me. Please do not take it seriously. Thank you.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Happy Reading!

* * *

_Impaired Love_

"You know Snoozles, I realized something."

The eyes of the Water Tribe warrior, half narrowed in his drowsy impairment, flickered towards his companion. The Blind Bandit sat slumped slightly over a half-full cup, in an apparently semi-conscious state. Around them a party had been unfolding for quite some time, although Sokka had lost track around Toph's sixth drink (her cups kept disappearing, although he hadn't really put much thought into where they had vanished to). He hadn't touched the bar tonight, much to his own surprise and Katara's satisfaction. As long as Aang was the designated bison-flyer, he didn't see the harm in losing grip on the situation. Tonight he was tired. It had been a rough couple of days, during which he spent hours circled around a table of colony plans and nights wondering why he couldn't keep his eyes shut.

Too sober and drowsy to properly acknowledge her thoughts with concern, Sokka merely gave a short grunt. At this rate, he mused, he might have been better off like Toph.

"Good gosh Sokka, I never told you, but I think I love you?" It was more of a slurred question that any sort of intelligent statement.

At first, Sokka's chin merely dipped downwards against his fancily-robed chest, exhaustion more powerful than even Toph's words, until the meaning of what had been said registered in his brain. A wave crashed over him—a wave of what, he wasn't so sure at the moment—and rippled through his head and chest like the sound of a crash.

"You what?"

Toph's body seemed to turn itself towards him without her permission. Her hand swung violently and knocked over her cup, spilling the substance within all across the table and onto the lap of a nearby, very unhappy-looking noble.

Through his exhaustion—why must he be so tired? Although post-war stress insomnia was something he couldn't deliberately change—his eyes widened in surprise when her hands reached up and started reaching around his left shoulder for his face. When she eventually found him, one hand reached up and entangled her fingers in his updoo, pulling him forcefully down to her eye-level. Sokka gave a small gasp in surprise and pain at this motion, but the next second Toph's free hand had clamped itself over his mouth.

"Shhh… We should get married, Sokka." Her breath smelled faintly of cactus juice, he noted as the adrenaline began to enter his veins in an attempt to awaken him. She gave an aberrant giggle. "We can get a boat—we can be pirates together and get treasure. You like treasure."

"Toph," Sokka tried to say, but instead it came out more like "Tbbbfl".

Toph pulled harder on his hair; he winced. What was she doing? His eyes flickered towards the indignant noble, who was at the moment cleaning his lap with a napkin and muttering curses under his breath, and Sokka realized that he was trapped.

"Talk to me, Sokka," she muttered. "Tell me you love me, Sokka. I gotta know. We can be pirates. Katara hates pirates."

It wasn't until this particular moment that Sokka realized he had hands. He reached up, almost delicately, and pried her hand away from his mouth. The hand in his hair protested, but the person attached to it didn't seem aware enough to do anything about it.

"Can you hear me, Toph?" Sokka asked in all seriousness.

"'Course I hear you, Snoozles!" She leaned in as if to kiss him, but he released her hand just in time to grab her shoulder and hold her back.

"Good. Now listen, Toph." Sokka peered into her face and fleetingly wondered why her face did not depict the state of her being. His heart hammered away in his chest, unacknowledged in his adrenaline awareness. "I don't want you to be like this when I tell you I love you, okay? I don't want that."

Toph drooped. "But the _pirates_," she moaned.

He found that he was almost glad that the words hadn't registered to her. He had been hoping that they wouldn't, for some reason (perhaps his unexplainable drowsiness), just so he could finally say it and have it bounce off of her pretty face.

"Sure Toph, we'll be pirates," he agreed in a calm tone. "I'm going to go tell Aang that we're leaving, and then we'll go get our pirate ship, okay? And some eye patches—two for you, I think, and one for me. You can chop off my leg and I'll get a wooden one. Okay?"

Toph's response was incoherent, but the grip on his hair nevertheless loosened. Sokka took this as a "yes" and rose from his seat. He would tell Aang that Toph was in no condition to stay, and then he would take her home, back to the Ba Sing Se apartment the four of them shared, and he would put her in her room for the night. The warrior glanced back only momentarily, and Toph's half-grin was enough to make him laugh and head off toward where Aang and Katara were chatting with the recently coronated Fire Lord Zuko.

As Sokka weaved between dancing couples, tripping once or twice in his tiredness, Toph watched him leave through her bare feet. Then, once his footsteps indicated that he was out of earshot, she turned her chin towards the nobleman.

"How you doin'?" She slurred.

"Wet," snapped the nobleman in response.

Toph grinned in response.

She dropped her expression again and waited until Sokka had approached again and rested a hand on her arm.

"Come on, Toph; we're going home now," he coaxed.

Giggling, she allowed him to assist her to her feet and guide her away from the table. Her feet caught his and she stumbled, hands slipping from his arms to around his waist in an attempt to stabilize herself. Sokka reacted by, in turn, grabbing her around her waist and pulling her side firmly against his so that she could no longer stumble. Her fingers clung to the expensive fabric of his shirt, her face pressed against his side as if she were afraid to move on her own.

Once the slightly lopsided pair had begun to walk away, the nobleman pulled up the tablecloth and peered at the five full cups beneath it, beneath which were tucked two Earth Rumble tickets. The man, chuckling, took them and tucked them into his robe.

"Who would have thought that such a simple favor would save me so much money?" he muttered to himself. "Thank you, miss Blind Bandit."

Toph, whose superb hearing had always enabled her to catch things Sokka could not, merely gave her assistant a thumbs-up from behind Sokka's back and allowed the warrior to escort her from the premises.

ooo

_Fin._

* * *

A/N: If you understood what just happened via subtle context clues, I applaud you, and you should let me know that you got the point! I realize that it isn't my best work, but it was sure as hell fun to write.

Thanks so much for reading my silly nonsense!


	14. The Wall

A/N: This story has been rotting away in my hard drive for quite some time now, so I finished it up and posted it on the forum. I didn't think it was really post-worthy (I usually only post my "acceptable" stuff here on FFNet), but it was received well so I decided to post it here, too.

And gah, you know how it is. AWS is taking the edge off of my enthusiasm, and what with how busy I've been-hardly time for writing at all, and the time I DO have has been wasted browsing the interwebs and talking on Skype. But alas, here's a tiny update, just so you don't think I've died!

I wrote this while listening to Pink Floyd's "The Wall". You should listen to it!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Happy Reading!

* * *

_The Wall_

"Toph."

Sokka pressed his ear against the wall and closed his eyes. Toph would be able to recognize the gesture, and that was okay; maybe she would accept his sincerity and talk to him about it instead of avoiding the problem. It wasn't really all that much of a problem, anyway—a minor uprising in their relationship, he liked to think.

He listened at the wall for a little while and heard nothing. Sighing, he knocked his knuckles against it again and called her name.

"Come on, Toph. Can't we just talk about this?"

No response. Not that he was surprised at this point, but that didn't matter. What _did_ matter—to him, at any rate—was that the Blind Earthbender was probably within five feet of him and shielded from his sight. Earlier, he had retreated back to his old ways and unknowingly made the comment that she wouldn't be able to join him and Aang on their trip to the Fire Nation because of her "current situation". Needless to say, she was not pleased.

Nor was she pleased when he suggested that, instead, she and Katara "start a book club or something while we're gone", and proceeded to put him in this rather unpleasant situation. Actually, he mused, he had put himself in this situation with his stupid mouth.

Sokka dropped to his knees and placed his palm against the wall, as if trying to feel her through it. If she wasn't going to open up, then he would probably be stuck here, in this situation, for quite some time. People were probably staring as they passed the house—at him and what he was sure was a very irate Toph, whose hair was probably somewhat straggled and whose hands surely sat expectantly on her hips. How she ever figured out how to portray expressions through poses, he would never figure out—probably from studying Katara's movements or something.

"Please, Toph, listen to me," he said reasonably. His feet moved uncomfortably, his eyes shifting downward. "I didn't mean what I said. Well, I mean, you still can't come—but when I say you can't come, I mean that it's for the baby, and not because you can't take care of yourself—but I didn't mean what I said about the book club. Well, because—well, you obviously wouldn't like a book club." He sighed, rested his forehead against the wall, and grazed his fingertip against it in a bored manner, flicking little grains of dirt away from his face. "Okay, well I admit that the book club comment was a little tactless. Can you forgive me now?" A moment of silence. "Please?"

Sokka gave a small groan and pounded his fist against the wall, just once. "This is ridiculous, Toph! I only had our best interests in mind! And Katara has to stay behind too, so it's not like you're going to be _alone_ or anything! I mean, you can have all sorts of fun bonding time with Katara. It'll be fun, right?"

Finally, Toph's voice responded for the first time, startling an unexpecting Sokka.

"You're really not helping your case any, you know."

"Yeah, I wouldn't want to hang out with Katara for a year either." A pause. "I just did it again, didn't I?"

"Pretty much, but I've always known that you're an idiot."

"Thanks. So, have we made up yet?"

"I'm still thinking about whether or not I should just let you sit there for a few hours."

Expressionless, Sokka cast a look around the room, then moved his eyes toward where he assumed she was standing on the other side of the wall. He raised one finger and pointedly scratched the side of his head, giving a displeased sniffle as he did so. So apologizing had done no good… what else could he do? Grovel? No, he could never—

"Toph,_please_, I'll do anything!"

The Blind Bandit gave a cold laugh. "Oh dear Sokka, begging already?"

"Come on, Toph. Get serious."

"I_am_ serious, meathead. In case you haven't figured, I was annoyed enough about not being able to go—without you making stupid comments that are supposed to make me _feel better_."

"But Toph, I didn't _mean_—"

"I know you didn't mean it, but maybe now you'll think about things before you say them, won't you?"

"Yeah…" Sokka cast his eyes upward toward the blue sky. "So, can I come out now?"

"Uhm, no. Maybe in an hour."

"_What?_" Turning his back upon the wall, Sokka crossed his arms and added in an almost inaudible undertone, "Crazy pregnant women and their craziness—ouch!"

He had shouted more out of surprise than actual pain, especially since it was a woolen blanket that had collided with the top of his head. Whether Toph had hurdled it over the wall or Earthbended it wasn't the question—all that he cared about was that he would most likely be here for a very, _very_ long time. He pulled the blanket off of his head in an exaggerated, very aggravated motion, and glared at where he supposed Toph was standing.

"I heard that," Toph said airily, and he could almost see her turn away and begin up the stairs of their house, hips swaying with that Bei Fong elegance that so conflicted with the rest of her demeanor. "Good night, Sokka."

Sokka stared at the blanket in his hands for a few moments before he turned his back to the enormously tall wall and stared at the three others that blocked him in the tiny Earthbended room. Well, he thought as he slid down the wall and impassively put the blanket over his head, at least he wouldn't be cold.

ooo

_Fin._

* * *

A/N: Er... sorry for lack of substance? I just had the image of Sokka being stuck in a giant Earth Room because he's stupid and makes stupid comments to Toph. Ehehe.


	15. Market Havoc

A/n: Wow, I am just spamming your inbox today, am I not? Oh well. You see, I wrote this a while ago for limey on DeviantArt so she could do her art project (I only ever ended up seeing page one of the comic, sadly D:). It was based off of a silly idea I was going to use for my "Parallel Lives" AU, but since I will probably never get that far, I thought I'd just post it now. (Also, dinglehopper drew me a mighty fine picture for this story, which I put on a Tshirt and wore to NYCC and Anime Fest!) Therefore, you can picture the characters as the original canon or their AU counterparts-whatever floats your boats!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Happy Reading!

* * *

_Market Havoc_

Of all the things Sokka hated about living in Ba Sing Se—he had quite a long list of things he disliked and was repulsed by and fascinated with, ranging from the secret police Dai Li to the appalling lack of stewed sea prunes, his favorite dish—but after this, he was going to wipe clean the list and write "grocery shopping with Katara" at the top in big letters. Big, red letters were a must. Sokka loved shopping for himself, of course, but watching Katara sift through a vast mountain of lettuce was torture. Apparently, the Blind Bandit by his side felt similarly.

A breath of a sigh escaped, almost unheard, from the pale lips of the Toph Bei Fong. Her head was bent low, as per usual, with her dark hair hanging in her eyes. "I thought you said shopping was _fun_, Snoozles. I'm so bored that I can barely walk straight."

Sokka merely grunted in response and threw a bag of rice into the cart he was pushing. After about five minutes of foot-tapping and staring, Katara had grown tired of listening to Toph and Sokka complain, and had thrust the list into his hands with a word of warning that any broken items would be paid for from his pocket. Or something like that. He hadn't really been listening.

A slight jolt in the movement of his cart caused him to jump and direct his eyes downward.

"Toph, what are you doing?"

Toph climbed, with a grunt of effort, into the shopping carriage and seated herself between a bag of fruit and what looked like half of a pre-cooked duck in a basket. Sokka almost laughed at the sight of her, only slightly cramped-looking with her knees bent upwards towards her chest.

"I have an idea; how much left do you have on that list?" She asked.

He cast a glance at the list that he held to the handle of the cart with his thumb. "Just a few things. What's on your mind?"

A smirk flitted across her face. "The sooner we get all of this stuff collected, the sooner we can leave, right?"

Sokka paused. "Right, so—?"

"So you push the cart, and I'll grab the stuff from the shelves when you say to grab, and we get out of here in five minutes!"

A grin blossomed across his face, eyes nearly sparkling with delight. "Ooh, I like that idea," Sokka agreed. He cracked his knuckles and grabbed the handle of the cart as if he were about to start a race. "You, my friend, are brilliant. Ready?"

"Come on, go!" commanded Toph—not in an unkind manner, but in a voice that suggested both the desire for fun and a mockery of the arrogance of her pre-Avatar lifestyle.

He considered the pros and cons of this idea for a moment, his ever-calculating mind sifting through the possible consequences or dangers (a list starting and ending with "Katara's wrath"), but his feet were faster than his brain. They began to move, and before he knew it he had begun to run forward with a sudden burst of energy.

From inside the carriage, Toph gave a shout as she was propelled backwards by the force of his start. Her bare feet flew upwards and her hands made a wild swing for the sides of the cart, lest she fly out of it in her surprise. She seemed to want to scream, but had lost the ability moments before.

"I said 'go', not 'run'!" she exclaimed in a mingled horror and shock.

Laughing, Sokka zoomed through the aisles of the shop towards the first item on his list, sometimes almost losing control of the cart but never letting it tip entirely. Heads turned and scandalized expressions followed them, but neither he nor Toph cared much (well, Toph _couldn't_ really care much, but he supposed that was besides the point). The wind blew his hair, the grin upon his face matched only by Toph's as her initial shock gave away to amusement.

His feet slid slightly as he made a sharp turn into the first aisle. "Alright Toph, aisle one: grains, soups, and stuff that isn't meat. Get ready!"

In response, Toph heaved a long sigh—whether it was to prepare herself for standing up in a fast cart or for her task, Sokka didn't know—and slowly rose up onto her feet. Both hands clenched the side of the cart with an ironlike grip, then one, and finally Toph stood sideways, alone in the center of the cart with her knees slightly bent against the forces tempting physics to toss her from safety. Sokka swerved a bit in his unsteadiness and she instinctively lowered herself, hair flapping comically around her face, but a second later she had righted up again.

"Directions, Captain Sokka?" She said.

Sokka glanced again at his list before looking up and responding in a loud voice, "Noodles on your left—" Toph shifted her position accordingly and readied her arm, "—in three, two one, go!"

Quick as lightning, Toph's arm shot out at the package of noodles on the shelf. Although she knocked over several other bags in the process, her hand closed with certainty on one package and, grinning at her own skill, she dropped it in the cart. Sokka gave a half laugh, half cheer on her behalf and sped off again without looking back at the fallen items.

"Nice grab, Toph!" he congratulated her. "Next stop, the meat aisle!"

The next few aisles went similarly, with Toph getting each item right on time and Sokka almost losing control of the cart on multiple occasions. The contents of the store seemed to be mostly on the floor as opposed to the shelves by the time Sokka read the last item on his list and sped off towards the vegetable aisle.

Shoulders bent low, Sokka continued to push the carriage at an alarming speed down towards the final aisle. His legs ached from the effort of pushing Toph's weight around, but he deemed that the excitement and laughs were more than enough to make up for the stretching he'd need to do later. As he went, the cart sped by Katara, who had evidently just finished picking out the perfect leaves of lettuce. However, when Sokka turned the corner of the last aisle with Toph standing in the cart, the bag of lettuce fell promptly from her hand as her jaw dropped.

"Sokka!" She exclaimed in horror. "What are you—?"

Both Sokka and Toph were laughing, unaware that Katara was watching them approach.

"Last on the list, get ready to grab a bag of Aang's vegetarian nonsense and—_Katara!_"

The last word left his mouth as more of a yelled squeak than a command. Toph's smile faded a touch and was replaced by a look of confusion.

"Wait, you want me to grab Katara—_aah!_"

"Sokka, stop! _Sokka!_"

Katara and Toph's words reached Sokka's ears in a blur at the same time, but neither registered as coherent; for, a split second beforehand, the cart had swerved violently and he lost control. The cart sped on, though, with Toph inside and Sokka dragging along behind, clinging to the handle with his legs dragging along behind, until it was stopped moments later by the conveniently-located vegetable stand.

"My _cabbages!_"

When Sokka opened his eyes, partially buried in an avalanche of green, he was not sure of what had happened. It was only after he saw Katara's shocked and outraged expression, Toph's lower half sticking out from a pile of cabbages, and the wheels of the shopping cart—whose contents were currently rolling across the floor—that he realized what had just happened. The unfortunate cabbage merchant screamed profanities and accusations, all the while grabbing his hat and doing a sort of hopping-dance. Moments later, Toph resurfaced beside him, dazed and spitting a cabbage leaf from her mouth.

"You," she deadpanned, "are a lousy driver."

Sokka shot her a glare that she could not see, and instead of adding a comment to match it, he altered his expression to one of delicate defensiveness and responded, "Well next time, Toph, _you_ can drive." He smiled, satisfied with his quip, until—

"_Agh!_"

The cabbage left Toph's hand and made contact with the side of Sokka's head before promptly rolling towards Katara, who had joined the cabbage merchant in yelling at the pair. Nevertheless, Sokka couldn't help but grin with Toph, even if the joke had been at his expense.

Judging by the looks of things, he and Toph would not be shopping with Katara for a long, long time, and he couldn't complain about that.

ooo

_Fin._

* * *

A/n: SO yeah, I wrote this in one day and had a ridiculously fun/stressful time doing so. Limey needed it ASAP, so I worked my butt of to get it.

Anyway, I hope you liked it, and thanks for reading!


	16. Quite the Sight

A/n: I originally posted this in February of 2010 (it is now January 2011), but re-discovered it after watching a little Avatar marathon. Even though I tend to nitpick at everything I write, I am genuinely pleased with this story. I went back and tweaked it a bit, so here you are!

Disclaimer: I own nothing, make no profit, and get nothing but sheer joy out of writing these characters.

Happy Reading!

* * *

_Quite a Sight_

Sokka awoke with a surge of panic, snapping to attention not from a sudden noise, but from a distinct lack thereof.

He had been dealing with this issue for some time now, though never to the extent where he woke up and had to scramble out of bed and start running around like an idiot. But that moment seemed to have arrived.

When it dawned upon the groggy warrior that he could hear no snoring on the other side of the bed, he had to bury his face in his pillow to stifle a frustrated groan. Her snores could shake the walls with the force behind them. That he'd noticed their absence more than he would their presence was in itself a bit of a secret weapon (and also kind of sad).

"Toph, please tell me that you're just sleeping very, _very_ soundly—"

His comment dropped off into an alarmed silence as he turned over and discovered the rumpled sheets empty. He was alone in the room. If nothing else, Toph didn't lie; she simply left without warning (or permission, when he thought it necessary). Sokka could admit that he should have seen this coming. Toph had casually mentioned the event the night before, when her knuckles had been white on her teacup at dinner and her shoulders stiff that night, even while he kissed her lips and stroked the underside of her knee in the way that he knew gave her marlin-goose bumps.

But she was Toph, at this point an unstable madwoman as unpredictable and wound up as a rabid saber tooth moose-lion. She'd been looking for days as if she might snap at any moment, and it was his duty to keep all bursts of poor judgment down to a minimum. He had ignored the warning signs, calling them nerves when he should have known better.

Well, he was certainly paying for his ignorance now.

So in a dread-induced but not wholly surprised frenzy, Sokka scrambled out of bed so fast that he neglected to untangle himself from the sheets first, and as a result landed face-first on the floor. Dazed and swearing, he scrambled up and half ran, half limped into the sitting room to take a look around.

The room stood untouched in the morning silence. The sun shone in through the far window and bathed part of the hallway in a rectangle of light. When he stepped through it, the room's hovering dust caught the beam and swirled about his face, his tired eyes. Sokka listened for footsteps and heard none, craned his neck to peer into the kitchen and was disappointed. She wasn't cooking him breakfast, that was certain (or trying to, as her attempts more often yielded inedible but hilarious results). His stomach gave a low and forlorn grumble, ever hungry at the worst moments. Sokka scratched idly at the back of his head, where his wolf's tail hung in a bedheaded mess.

He was just contemplating whether to fetch Aang for damage control when he heard the front door click shut from down the hall, so quiet that he would have missed it if he had been breathing louder. Sokka took off.

"Hey!" He burst through front door and into the day's brightness, stopped so fast that he almost tripped over himself, spun frantically around. Up the street a bit, he spotted a certain dark-haired, barefoot woman walking as fast as she could, as if by going just above normal pace she could be missed. "Hey, Toph!"

Dropping all pretenses at the sound of her husband's cry, Toph broke into a full run. And he, having no other option, chased after her, all the while shouting at her retreating back in a feeble stab at coaxing her back.

"Toph, be reasonable! You know you can't—_gah!_"

Sokka stumbled as the ground slipped out from beneath his shoeless feet, and managed to recover only because she'd practiced this trick on him a million times before. Toph was fast, but his legs were longer and he'd had more training than her as of late, and as he drew nearer he contemplated what exactly he could do when he closed the gap. Over the years he'd perfected his tackling technique (it really _was_ fun to take her down by surprise, when he could pull it off), but here it would cause more harm than necessary. Instead, when he caught up to Toph after what felt like more than just a few seconds, he did the only other thing he could.

First he grabbed her by the wrist and, when she turned around to Earthbend him straight to the moon, shoved his arms under her armpits from behind, locked his hands together across her upper chest, and lifted her straight off the ground.

The enraged shriek that followed sounded loud enough to wake the entire city, though he might have felt that way because the sound had originated just outside his left ear.

"Put me down, you meathead!" Toph demanded, sounding so uncharacteristically desperate that he almost complied out of sheer surprise. However, he held on despite her squirming, taking his concentration off of his captive only long enough to bid their neighbor a cheerful-but-strained good morning. The neighbor—a rather large man with a belly that Sokka was sure could bowl him over—who had paused his gardening to watch the scene unfold, could only give a deadpan stare. Probably, Sokka realized, because he was still wearing nothing but a pair of old shorts and one sock. Although it also likely had something to do with him having to bodily restrain his own wife from leaving the house. Either way, he had a sudden feeling that he wasn't going to be seen the same way by this man ever again.

Sokka eased the door open with his sock-clad foot, grateful that Toph was still petite enough for him to keep a hold on without too much strain, then crossed the room to a wooden sliding door by the kitchen.

Toph demanded again to be set down, this time so that she could "beat you to gravel!" Sokka ignored her. He stopped outside the door and did an awkward shimmy against it to slide it open with his hip. Toph stopped struggling as his footsteps ceased, and then let out a gasp of dawning comprehension as he set her down inside the closet. Sokka caught a split-second snapshot of her face, painted over with shock, before slamming the door shut and fastening the lock into place from the outside.

A little pause ensued, in which Sokka admired his handiwork with grim satisfaction and Toph paused to take a deep breath before she let loose another barrage of commands and mingled insults.

"Let me out of here, Sokka! _Right now._"

"I thought we agreed that you can't fight anymore," he replied, raising his voice so that it might be heard over the sound of her tiny put powerful fists on the door. "Not until the baby gets here."

"You can't tell me what to do!" she shouted. "It's my body and you can't tell me what to do with it!"

Sokka crossed his arms in a defiant pose that she could not see while stuffed in the wooden closet. "Not completely, not anymore! There's a tiny little bit of me—um, inside of you. And as long as it's…incubating… in there, I get to have a say in what you do and do not do!"

He paused, raising an eyebrow at his own word choice. Incubating…? He shrugged. Eh, it would do.

"I need to fight, I need it like I need to breathe," came the loud but muffled response. "I haven't done nearly any Bending at all in eight months. _Eight months!_"

"We already have a long, long list of potential problems, Toph… I would know, I wrote them all down."

"I can't—" The pounding on the door slowed and died. "Sokka, I'm—I can't—"

Sokka waited for her to finish her sentence, waited with his arms crossed and one foot tapping expectantly on the floor, but it never arrived. After a few seconds, Sokka dropped the pose and unbolted the lock as a jolt of fear caused him to almost leap forward. Had she fainted? This pregnancy had been so unanticipatedly difficult her, physically if not mentally. She'd already fainted once before, a few months ago…

The door slid open and Toph came stumbling into the light, bent over double with her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath.

_Screaming like a madwoman will do that to you_, Sokka thought in exasperation, relieved nonetheless that she was in no danger. He eyed her apprehensively as she regained her composure, noting with a sense of affection that her giant, bulging, baby-filled belly dwarfed the rest of her tiny frame.

"Toph," Sokka began softly, setting a hand on her stooped shoulder. "I'm sorry it has to be like this, I really am. If I could make it so that you could safely fight, I swear I would—"

Having recuperated from her screaming fit, Toph straightened up and inhaled a deep sigh, a bit like a flower springing up after a rainstorm. And then she punched him so hard in the arm that little scowling Toph faces danced before his eyes.

"You're an asshole," she snapped, and marched out of the room.

Sokka rubbed at the black and blue already forming above his right elbow. "I love you too, Toph," he said through gritted teeth, then spun around to watch her stomp off. "Does that mean we're settled on the whole Earth Rumble thing?"

The resounding _slam_ of their bedroom door led him to believe as much. Sokka sighed. They were safer this way, yes, but how much good were his restraints if they made them both miserable? By the way these last few minutes had gone, he was going to need a lot more than a wooden closet before the end of her third trimester.

ooo

_Knock-knock._

Sokka waited for a grand total of three seconds before trying again.

_Knock-knock-kno— _

The door creaked open just enough so that Katara could stick her head outside to investigate. When her eyes fell on her fidget of a brother, she threw the door open and assaulted him with a rib-cracking hug before he could even open his mouth.

"Sokka, it's so good to see you! Where's Toph? How are you?"

She pulled back from the hug and held him at arm's length, surveying everything from the tired circles beneath his eyes to the bruise on his arm. He allowed her to have a few moments to fret, and didn't bother to roll his eyes when she straightened his sash and 'tsk tsk'-ed at the twist in his belt; she wouldn't hear a word he said until she had the chance to pick him over for at least a minute. It would also be best, he deduced, to shirk her questions until he had crossed the threshold into the house.

"You have, what, eight kids. Right?"

Katara's smile faded. She straightened up and propped her hands on her waist in a classic "sassy Katara" veneer. "If by eight you mean three, then yes," she deadpanned.

"I need some advice," he said in earnest, reaching across the space between them to pluck her hands away from her hips and hold them in his own.

The smile reappeared on Katara's face as if he'd never made a quip about she and Aang's reproductive habits. Squeezing his hands, she began to tug him into the house.

"Come right in—Aang just got back from Omashu this morning, I'm sure he'd love to help you out!"

She led Sokka into their wide open, modestly-furnished sitting room, where Aang was just sitting down with a cup of tea. Upon Sokka's entrance, though, he shot back up before his rear end could touch the floor cushion. Aang set his cup down on the table, and then Sokka's vision went briefly orange as Aang threw his arms around his stony-faced brother-in-law.

"It's great to see you, Sokka! Where's Toph?" He stepped back after a brief hug, seemed to sense that something wasn't right, and frowned. "What's the matter?"

"It's Toph. We had a fight this morning." Sokka paused. "Sort of. I locked her in a closet."

Katara gasped, taken aback. "You didn't _leave_ her in there, did you?"

"Of course not, I'm not a _complete_ idiot—that would be a death wish," he retorted hotly.

"Maybe we should sit," Aang cut in. He grabbed Sokka's arm just above the bruise and guided him to the table. He shot an inquiring look to his wife as he steered Sokka into the nearest seat. "Katara, could you—?"

"Tea? Of course."

She seemed to read his mind, as was common practice between the two. Sokka had never known a couple to have such an unspoken connection as the pair before him. This he liked to blame on their deep spiritual bond, though in his heart he knew it to be more than just spirit magic. Aang, taking a second look at Sokka, added over his shoulder as Katara disappeared from the room, "Something strong, I think."

"Do you want sugar, Sokka?"

"Nah, I'm sweet enough without it."

The two men sat down across from one another at the table for four. Sokka observed over Aang's shoulder two young children playing some sort of card game, with pictures of different regions of the four nations. A boy and a girl, the Avatar and Katara's first two children. The youngest, another boy no older than ten months, was nowhere in sight—probably crawling around the kitchen while his mother prepared a pot of tea.

"So Aang, how was your trip?" asked Sokka as he settled down.

Aang looked up from stirring his tea and beamed. "It was great! I never would have thought eight years ago that things would be running so naturally. It's really rewarding to see everyone getting along at an international trade meeting. And on my way home, I stopped at the annual Vegetarian Convention."

"Sounds… tasty."

"It was!" Aang confirmed, completely missing the sarcasm.

At that moment, Katara reappeared with the aforementioned infant on her hip and a tray balanced expertly on her free hand. Aang waited until she'd served the drinks and sat down beside him on the adjacent cushion before he spoke.

"So what's the problem, Sokka?"

Feeling a little like he was in therapy, Sokka recounted the story as best as he could without exaggerating—which, he'd found, he tended to do more when either stressed or inebriated. He explained Toph's tenseness over the last few days, her odd behavior that he had dismissed as a side effect of being so far along in her pregnancy.

His sister and Aang had been there for them since they all found out that Toph was expecting; they'd offered words of encouragement and advice from their abundance of experience, especially when things started off a little rough. Toph and Sokka had been so thrilled that they were going to have a baby—they'd been trying for quite some time, but to no effect (to the point where Sokka began to question his masculinity and scold certain parts of his anatomy for not "giving it all you've got"). Not days after their discovery, the troubles started pouring in.

First, the doctors feared that her little frame had hips too narrow to support and birth a growing child. Then, when they'd braced themselves for that obstacle alone, Toph fell ill with fever and spent a month in Ba Sing Se Hospital, shaking and delusional, thinking that she had lost her companions in the war with the Fire Nation. And then, of course, there was the ever-present fear at the base of every medical conversation—that her blindness might be passed on. Other odd reactions had occurred, too, as if her body were rejecting these new changes. Sokka had come home two months ago to find her unconscious in the back yard, having fainted for some reason during light Earthbending practice. He thought she'd died. No words could adequately express how he had felt upon the sight of her sprawled out on the ground, or what he had thought when she came-to in his arms, dazed but as witty and unfazed as she could be while semiconscious.

Through every challenge they had stayed as tough as ever, their mutual humor holding up their composure even in the worst moments—because no matter the complication, they both knew that it would be worth it. He could go without the feeling of being balanced on the edge of a precipice, yes, but it would be worth every hour of missed sleep just to bring that little shriveled-looking bundle of mixed nation breed into the world. Until now, Toph had been the epitome of strength, unyielding in her resolve to get through this with a smile and as much grace as one could achieve when one spent the majority of the time covered in a coat of dirt.

And then he'd locked her in a closet. Not one of their best moments, Sokka had to think.

"When she heard that Earth Rumble XIV was going to be in the city this year, she just sort of freaked out, I guess. She's got her mind set of regaining the title, since she had to miss the tournament last year when we were in the Fire Nation." Sokka concluded his tale as Katara sipped her tea and Aang listened without so much as shifting his gaze. Their youngest child sat between them, tugging absently at Katara's tunic and making those strange gurgling sounds that Sokka could not yet understand. "I hate to be the bad guy here, but I really don't think it's safe for her to be fighting big, muscley men at a time like this!"

"You left her at the house, by herself?" Katara said in disbelief, her eyes wide. "How do you know she hasn't run off again?"

Sokka shook his head. "She won't go, not after we fought about it. She'll probably never forgive me, but she won't betray my trust again… although now that I think about it, I'm sure she's tearing the house apart. She's probably shredded my wall of maps by now."

"Hmm…"

Aang looked to his wife now. "Do you remember when you got hurt during that rebellion after the war, and you couldn't Bend for a month?"

Katara nodded vigorously, turning to Sokka. He watched her hair loopies swing about her profile as she moved. "It was awful, Sokka. I felt like I'd lost a part of my soul, like my spirit had been torn in two."

"Think of how Toph must feel," said Aang. "Her Bending is more a part of her than it is of any of us, even me. She uses it to see, to find peace, to vent her frustration and feel safe."

"She did say something like that…" Sokka admitted without meeting their eyes, thinking back on her panicked voice as she claimed that she might suffocate. He'd never experienced that—feeling so deeply deprived that he might not be able to breathe. But then again, he always kept his boomerang within an arm's backward reach.

"Exactly. If she really wants to compete, I don't think you should try to stop her. It will soothe her in ways that nothing else could."

Sokka stared. He had ventured here in hope of getting advice on how to best detain her, not to let her free (He'd been thinking ropes would do the trick, but hadn't been altogether confident on the ethics of it). Part of him—no, most of him—could not believe what he was hearing. That Aang and Katara could sit there and tell him that he'd gotten it backwards, after everything he'd been through—it was unbelievable. Given, he could be a little overbearing and protective at times. He'd come to terms with this notion long ago, and someone would always call him on it. But this—?

"Are you guys forgetting what Earth Rumble is? Giant, sweaty men, flinging rocks and trying to knock each other off of a really tall stage. _Giant_. _Men_." He made a grand gesture to emphasize the point.

"Sokka, have you ever seen Toph lose a competition? Have you ever seen them land a hit on her? _Ever?_" Katara pressed.

"Well… no, but…"

Aang took a long sip of tea, set the cup down, and straightened the beaded pendant around his neck. "One of the most amazing things I've ever gotten to do is observe a pregnant Waterbender. When Katara was with child, my favorite thing to do was just watch her at work. Bending made her so happy—I don't think I could have stopped her if I'd tried."

Aang turned to Katara and they smiled at one another, and Sokka could have sworn that they glowed. He frowned at the couple—so much more openly affectionate than he and Toph, though by no means more in love—and wondered if he and Toph had their own inexplicable glow. He liked to believe so, even if they'd lost some of their luster in the last few weeks. He sighed for what felt like the hundredth time.

"I don't know, Aang. I can't help but worry… after everything we've been through, I wouldn't want to lose it all on a shiny belt and some prize money."

"A Bender cannot be taken from what binds them to life," said Aang, turning back Sokka. "The same will go for Toph and Earth Rumble. It's such a part of her spirit that to go without would cause her more harm than good. You can't deny her record, Sokka. It's amazing."

"Her record isn't enough, not on its own," Sokka answered adamantly. He finished off the last of his tea without really tasting it, set the cup down on the table without registering the _clink_ of porcelain on wood. "If she's going to do this, I need some reassurance. How can we make it safe?"

Aang replied, smirking, "I have a few ideas. When does the tournament start?"

"Nightfall."

All heads turned to the window, through which they could see that midday had barely approached. That seemed to settle things for Aang, who leapt to his feet with a small gust of air, then scooped up his smallest son and kissed his temple.

"We can head over there now and work things out." He turned to Katara. "Do you know if Lena is available to watch the kids?"

Katara nodded her confirmation.

"Excellent! Let's go, then."

"Wait, wait—" Sokka scrambled to his feet, eyeing his friends with uncertainty as Aang passed his son off to Katara. "After we do… whatever it is you plan on doing… what am I supposed to do with myself?"

Aang shrugged, smiled, and answered quite simply, "Enjoy the show."

ooo

He felt distinctly suffocated in the crowd of shuffling people—men, mostly—that milled about in search of seats, friends, and concessions. Beside him, Aang and Katara were the perfect image of calm, as if they were watching a play onstage instead of waiting for the Rumble to begin. Katara pat her brother's knee in a gesture she must have thought comforting.

"Relax, Sokka," she said gently.

Sokka swatted her hand away distractedly and responded with the only comeback he could think of while his mind was spinning in circles: "_You_ relax."

The people who ran the tournament had been shocked to see her at the sign-in registry table—Toph, with her hands folded atop her belly and a tiny smirk in the corner of her mouth—and even more surprised to hear that she intended to compete. Sokka, who felt like a distinctly horrible father standing there and saying nothing, had a feeling that they wouldn't have let her enter the venue had they not been completely petrified by her presence. The biggest of the registry men had even been as brave as to comment, hesitantly, as if she might kill him: "Don't you think it's a little dangerous to be fighting in your—uh—state?"

Toph's eyebrows shot up. "What are you talking about?"

"You're—well…" the man seemed to consider taking it back, but then pressed on anyway. "You're pregnant."

Before Sokka could put his concurring opinion out for grabs, Toph had thrown an accusing finger in the man's face, her expression twisted into fury.

"How dare you talk to a lady like that, and assume such things?" she exclaimed in a voice that only Sokka knew to be an exaggeration. "You of all people should know better than to discriminate against the overweight. So I put on a few pounds since last time, who cares? I happen to enjoy a slice of cake here and there. What's your excuse, Fatty? I can feel your chair begging to collapse from here. Now shut up and fill out that form for me—in case you didn't know, I have a little seeing problem. Or are you going to try to disqualify me for that, too?"

Sokka was so taken aback that he didn't even have to try to keep himself from laughing at the absurdity of it all. He stared at his wife with his jaw wide open and contemplated backing away from the very big, very muscled man that she had just accused of being obese. But the man, who Sokka would have never, ever crossed, shrank back in his creaking chair and chirped in a choked voice, "Yes, of course, right away Miss Blind Bandit!"

Sokka left Toph in her preparation room without even a kiss goodbye ("No lovey stuff right now, Sokka. I need to get my game face on.") and ducked through herds of burly spectators to find his seat alongside Aang and Katara.

The first fight started—some masked character against the reigning champion, a huge middle-aged man with a mustache reminiscent of Haru's. He called himself "Bone Crusher". Sokka bit at his cuticles until Katara had to snatch his hand away from his mouth.

By the time arrived for Toph to make her entrance, Sokka had resigned himself to the fact that he was powerless over the situation. He took to holding his breath for long intervals and letting it all out at once when he realized that he was getting light-headed. He thought briefly of his first time at Earth Rumble, of how he had cheered for Toph's sound defeat against her now long-time friend The Boulder (he'd been over for lunch just the other week). How stupid Sokka had been then; hadn't he known that this sort of thing was dangerous? How could he have let her compete for all these years? If she passed out from exertion during the fight, would they take mercy on her or toss her overboard?

The deep-voiced announcer stood atop his podium once more, cleared his throat, and began to speak—effectively cutting short Sokka's runaway train of thought.

"Now, for and final round, the moment you have all been waiting for… I present to you: Bone Crusher versus the eleven-time winner, world-renowned Master, back from a two-year absence to fight for the championship belt once more…"

Sokka's shirt felt drenched with sweat, his mind fogged over with nerves. The noise level of the crowd began to rise. Bone Crusher stood at the end of the arena with his fists up and at the ready.

"Ladies and gentlemen… the Blind Bandit!"

The audience exploded with cheering, which quickly scattered and turned to a roaring wave of disbelieving whispers and comments the moment the infamous Blind Bandit appeared. Even Sokka, who had spent the last hours dreading this moment, felt himself loosen up at the sight of the fighter as she walked onto the stage.

Toph's hair was up in its customary bun, her hands and wrists adorned with bands, heavy bracelets, and rings that made her look more intimidating rather than dainty. Katara had helped her modify her fighting outfit over the years to be more feminine and fearsome, and this afternoon the Waterbender had had to tear the seams of the tailored sackcloth in order to fit it to Toph's pregnant figure. Yet the alteration to her outfit or appearance was not what made Sokka begin to let go of his fear. He had seen her in it beforehand, anyway.

He had expected her to launch herself onto the stage as she had done so many times, maybe to do a back flip or something as equally straining and visually spectacular. Instead, she merely walked into place at the far end of the stone platform. What made him just about lose it was that when she walked, she practically _waddled_. Beside him, Katara and Aang both failed to suppress a bout of laughter. Sokka felt a small but undeniable lightheartedness creep into his chest for the first time. She didn't look like she should be fighting—by her appearance, she should have been escorting a group of kids to Earthball practice.

The announcer's voice rang out again, this time sounding almost embarrassed. "At this time, the administrators would like to announce that both parties have signed the appropriate release forms, and that Earth Rumble is in no way responsible for any repercussions or injuries sustained during this battle."

Whoever organized the fights had obviously not given Bone Crusher a heads-up about his most frightful opponent's current "situation". His fighting stance dropped the moment his eyes fell upon the Blind Bandit, who stood grinning before him with her tiny hands at her sides.

"What the—"

Bone Crusher turned, flabbergasted, to the announcer.

"Are you kidding me, Liu? I'm not fighting her—she can barely walk!"

The commentator could only give a feeble, defeated shrug. The audience broke into more murmurs at this helpless reaction. Sokka was starting to think that Bone Crusher might explode; he kept repeating himself, shouting up at Liu the commentator about ridiculous this was, that it must be a joke, that it was ludicrous. Sokka had to agree, at least to some extent. It certainly _looked_ ridiculous, with Bone Crusher more than twice the size of his challenger (save for the belly) and three times as built—

"It's no joke, Bone Crusher," rang the confident voice of a woman who had been duking it out on the Earth Rumble floor for so long that the arena felt more like home than home did.

The man tore his eyes from the red-faced commentator and set his incredulous gaze on the Blind Bandit.

"You're out of your mind if you think I'm going to fight you!" he shouted.

"And you're out of a title, Crushey," said she. "Unless you've got the rocks to fight a loud-mouthed girl. Don't worry your tiny head, I've got all the protection I need."

Here, Toph rapped her knuckles against her enormous abdomen, and from the motion there sounded a _clang!_ of metal armor—designed by Sokka and Aang, and sculpted by the Earthbender herself only two hours before.

The silence that followed told Toph that she hadn't convinced Bone Crusher. Now putting on a falsely sympathetic expression, she added, "Look, Crushey, I understand. I really do. If you don't want to fight, I don't mind. We'll switch places—I'll take your belt and you can keep acting like a woman and make me a sandwich."

_Zing!_ thought Sokka, as he clapped a hand over his mouth to keep a laugh from spilling forth.

Bone Crusher, however, did not find the quip half as endearing as did Sokka, or even the crowd. Instantly he assumed his stance once more and she, in turn, flashed a smile that reminded Sokka of her horrifying wanted poster from all those years ago.

"That's what I thought," she muttered under her breath, and slid into her horse stance without another word.

Bone Crusher struck first, as they almost always did when riled up by her words and unshakable calm. Sokka, as he watched the match unfold, could not help but realize that Aang had been, as usual, exactly right.

There was nothing—nothing—more hilarious, exciting, and wonderful than seeing a pregnant Earthbender take down a fully grown man without even trying. She moved with a sort of newfound grace despite her awkward proportions, flowing through the Bending motions with effortless precision. Bone Crusher split the ground between her feet and she leaned to one side, sending a rock at his ankles—a bluff, Sokka was able to deduce, only because she'd shown him how she did it during one of their countless sparring sessions. Bone Crusher threw up a slab of stone to protect his ankles, and in the moment between this motion and his next breath, she made a pushing gesture with her arms and he fell forward as the ground slipped out from under his feet. He stumbled over his own half-wall, and Toph turned his stumble into a full-frontal flip by giving him a little extra push upward from behind. The audience gasped as Bone Crusher landed on his backside, then roared its approval as she pulled up a second slab of rock, forced him between it and the original slab, and turned it on its side—in effect, creating a Bone Crusher sandwich. Within seconds she'd sent her opponent, rock entrapment and all, over the edge of the arena.

Game over.

Sokka was on his feet in a flash with the rest of the stadium's occupants, cheering his approval at the top of his voice.

"She makes it look so easy!" exclaimed Katara, who was all but dancing on the spot with delight.

Sokka didn't take his eyes from his wife to respond to his sister. He focused on Toph alone, the champion, as she threw her fist in the air to signal her victory. She couldn't hear his voice amidst the screams of her fans, could probably feel every foot stomping the ground in excitement, yet she still managed to single him out from the masses. She did a half-turn on stage, still bearing the widest smile he'd seen in months, and pointed directly at him where he stood in the high stands with his arms pumping above his head. Because no matter what sort of struggle they endured, everything one did was for the other. And while nobody else in this entire building knew who Toph was pointing to or what the gesture meant, Sokka did, and that was all he needed:

_This one's for you._

o

_Fin._

* * *

A/n: I really, REALLY enjoyed writing this story, and I hope you enjoyed reading it too! Also, as a sort of "Where's Waldo", I stole one of metromax's brilliant OFC's and stuck him in this story. Yay plagiarism! And thanks for reading._  
_


	17. Plan of Attack

A/n: Hello! This little ficlet was meant to fit into the Tokka Week celebration, but as usual, I did not finish it in time!It began as a complete joke referenced off of several pieces of art on DA (namely "Tokka - Toe Picking" by Devfrost2000), and took a turn for the serious. I can't control myself.

**WARNING: This story contains blatant mentions of sex and sensuality, but is NEITHER explicit NOR a lemon.** So if you don't like hints of this sort of thing, please carry on! That being said, it is really not that much in the way of sensuality... it's just more than I have previously included in this collection. But we're all big kids now, so here we go!

Shameless Plug: If you could use a little more Tokka in your life, follow TheTokkaDaily on Tumblr!

Disclaimer: I don't own a single part of this work.

Happy Reading!

* * *

_Plan of Attack_

On the third day of their week-long trip (which felt much more like a month-long trip), Toph and Sokka returned after midnight from a walk across Gaoling. They ignored the guards' apparent disapproval with a cheerful wave and sauntered up the walking path to the ornate doors of the Bei Fong estate, arms linked and voices blithe.

"You'd better be honored, Sokka," said Toph. "I've been pursued by men all over the world, you know."

"I _am_ honored," said Sokka. His earnest tone made Toph's exaggerated smugness seem even more inflated. "But are you sure you, you know—" He glanced back to confirm that the guards were, indeed, listening, "want to _do it_?"

Toph gave a breathy sigh. She straightened her posture, tossing her hair over her shoulder as if to suggest that she did not care that the guards would report their conversation to her parents. At twenty years old, having saved the world and single-handedly beaten more Fire Nation soldiers than most of the town had ever seen, Toph felt more than qualified to do whatever she liked.

"Please stop asking."

"Okay, I'm sorry! I just want to be sure. It's kind of a… big thing. For you. The first time, anyway."

They had reached the house's front step. A few yards behind, the guards had dropped any semblance of indifference and turned around at their posts, craning their necks to hear more before Toph and Sokka could get out of earshot. Toph unhitched her arm from Sokka's and, when he started to reach for the door, bumped him aside with her hip and grabbed the handle first. She held the door open to let him pass, grinning slyly at the baffled guards before following Sokka across the threshold.

The house staff had put the house to sleep for the night. Upon entering the dark foyer, Sokka lingered close by Toph's side.

"Whose room, mine or yours?" he said.

"Mine."

"All right. I'll get the water and meet you there."

Sokka hesitated. He bent to kiss Toph before feeling his way down the hall, shuffling so as to avoid a collision with nearby furniture.

xXx

Toph's least favorite part about being home was not the constant lecture about maintaining the family's legacy by marrying wealthy and marrying _young_ (so as to make the most of her reproductive life, of course), nor was it the reproachful tones in which Lao and Poppy addressed Sokka (only to ask him to fetch things throughout the house, which suggested to Toph that they thought him a more suitable hand maid than boyfriend). Toph had anticipated all of these things. She'd warned Sokka — albeit unnecessarily, as she had caught him trying to pack his armor into his bag before leaving Ba Sing Se. Implications that Sokka was not good enough she handled by letting the servants catch them kissing in unusual places throughout the house. Snide remarks she dismissed or tossed back like rubbish, which had the bonus effect of making her parents even more furious.

What she could not handle, and had not ever imagined being an issue, was that the moment the pair arrived from their journey across the country her parents demanded that she bathe. Or rather, that she be bathed by the pair of maids they kept for this exact purpose.

Apparently, Toph's greatest offense was not escaping from home for years and stopping by only when she had no other option, but rather returning home covered and summer dust and sweat.

Toph's protests quickly turned into threats to blow the house up, then into screams as her parents had her escorted from the front entrance, and after about ten minutes of indignant shrieking from behind the bathroom door there was silence. Then passed an agonizing thirty-minute long silence during which Sokka at first tried to make conversation with Toph's parents and then just stood there with his arms hanging awkwardly by his sides. He retreated to the guest room to unpack his bag when things began to feel hostile.

Toph had been bathed until an embarrassing age. Having the grime scrubbed from your body and hair was a luxury only the most privileged could afford, a process meant to soothe and rejuvenate. She once tried to count the amount of her life she'd wasted up to her midriff in soapy water, but the statistic soon grew too depressing to continue. Instead she spent her childhood trying to dodge her maids at night—claiming that other maids had already bathed her, claiming that she hadn't gone outside, even going as far as washing her own hands and feet so that she looked as if she'd already bathed.

But she wasn't twelve and submissive and living a secret life, not anymore. At twenty, Toph bore her smudges with the sort of pride Sokka reserved for his weapon holster. She bathed rarely and discreetly, and never _ever_ returned to her friends scowling and smelling faintly of perfume, as she did when she was finally released from the bathroom.

xXx

It was never about the nakedness. Clothes played a relatively unimportant role in Toph's life, given her blindness. She'd happily walk around nude and have everyone do the same, were it not for chilly breezes and the inability for people to keep their mouths shut about one another.

In the same way that nudity was natural and, despite most peoples' fear of it, commonplace, so too was the means of making pleasure by it. The only reason they refrained in the first few years of their relationship was Sokka's insistence that Toph was too young at seventeen, and later that he was too old for her when he was twenty-one, and only once she convinced him that their age gap wasn't going anywhere did they finally make this step in their relationship. Sokka, in all of his romanticism, had been affronted by her claim that this action had no inherently important meaning. It was something that many — if not most people — did, for reproduction and otherwise. It was nice, but it wasn't special because neither of them had been particularly exclusive before this relationship, and really it was just a lot of _work_.

Being bathed by hand maids was never about nakedness. Toph certainly hated being treated like a fragile lotus in need of support, but what upset her most was that they tried to wash her feet. When she was twelve, Katara dragged her to a salon under the pretense that nobody would be going anywhere near her feet, and when they tried she hurtled one of the attendants clear through the wall. More than once in later years, men and women got on their knees before her and begged for the honor of kissing the feet that were so instrumental in ending the war. The result was always the same, and always to her friends' amusement.

If she was going to let anyone even touch her, it was going to be someone who had been there through the best and worst of the war. Someone whose loyalty and friendship had never wavered, even as the debris collapsed on top of them. Someone with whom she almost spent the very last moments of her life.

So when Sokka half-jokingly asked if she would ever let _him_ wash her feet, Toph said yes. They had been wandering down by the park on their late-night stroll, discussing ways in which they could maintain their sanity until the week was out and they could meet Aang and Katara at the rendezvous point. It had been only three days since their arrival. Three days of fuming on Toph's part and general discomfiture on Sokka's, three days of meeting with noble families and enduring the same discussion over and over and over, and by tonight Toph could barely stand to be on the property at all. What they needed was something sacred and private that could carry them through until the end of the week. Sokka's timing just happened to be perfect.

Katara hadn't understood Toph's annoyance and panic back at the spa, but Sokka did now.

Toph felt Sokka's footfalls before the door rolled open and Sokka shuffled into the room. In his arms he balanced a large basin of water. He stopped to chart a path through the carpet of clothes spread across the floor. For the first time, Toph felt the surge of anticipation settling in her bones. She had been lying prone across the bed, but sat up upon Sokka's arrival and swung her legs off the side. Sokka eased down to his knees before her and set down the stone basin. Its contents swished around by the brim.

"Are you all right?" Sokka said. "You seem a little, uh…"

"I'm fine," said Toph, but she knew that her tense posture gave her away; her knees were tight together, legs angled inward and her weight on the balls of her feet. To assure him that she was not nearly as nervous as she actually was, she lifted her feet to his eye level and wiggled her toes. "Are _you_ ready?"

Sokka chuckled in response, a sound deliberately low and hushed to keep the house's other patrons from waking. He touched her ankles and she started in surprise. This was not the first time Sokka had contact with Toph's feet—she had shoved a foot playfully in his face after knocking him to the ground during a spar. When they were alone and tangled together and his breath was harsh in her ear, she would slide her toes up his legs and hitch her ankles around the small of his back.

But this was different, somehow, and in a way that she couldn't begin to fathom when Sokka eased her feet into the bath. The water was hot enough to sting at first but not enough for her to draw back. Sokka unfastened the clasp of Toph's space earth bracelet, which today hung around her ankle like a black bangle, and pocketed it. He wetted her skin up to the mid-calf and didn't seem to mind the goosebumps that arose in spite of the hot water. Toph smelled some sort of soap, but it was not the one her parents liked to keep in the house. This smell was familiar and oddly wonderful, a friend from the past. Toph identified it as the one Katara used to carry in her bag when they were traveling across the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation. She didn't know what it was meant to smell like, but it carried her back to when she was twelve and had tasted freedom for the first time.

Sokka rubbed the puck of soap in his hands before tending to her. He lifted her left foot out of the water and propped it one hand, using the other to apply the soap. Starting down by the heel, Sokka scrubbed small circles along the bottom of her foot until he'd reached her toes.

"Don't scrape _all_ the dirt off," Toph said. "I need to maintain my protective coating of earth."

Sokka snorted, setting one foot gently into the water and picking up the next. "I don't think that's possible. Maybe if I had a chisel…"

They lapsed into another lengthy silence as Sokka lathered up her right foot and rubbed it clean (or as clean as possible). Toph's initial anxiety was lost in Sokka's gentle rhythm, in the lazy burn of the water. She flopped backward across the bed and sighed.

"See, it's not that bad!" said Sokka. "Look what you've been missing all these years."

Toph didn't answer. She didn't see the point in explaining to Sokka that it wasn't the idea of contact that had instilled in her this paralyzing fear, for she was sure that he understood. Toph's feet were those of the world's greatest Earthbender, but they were not just a tool for transportation and fighting—they were her method of sight, the means by which she existed from day to day. Whereas sex was an ordinary method of expression, this is what set her apart from her peers. Apart from the other women, even the other Benders.

And this, all of this! Sokka rinsing her feet off in the basin and patting them dry, the little upbeat in his pulse that signified contentedness. It _meant something_.

Toph would have been happy to let Sokka stop here so that he could either go to sleep in his own bed or cozy up in hers. Relaxed as she felt, having one's feet thoroughly washed for the first time was somewhat draining. Sokka finished drying her feet before shouldering the towel and standing up with the basin. Lying on the bed, Toph followed his footsteps down the hall and into the bathroom, and when he returned he was almost empty-handed.

"You're not asleep already, are you?" came his whisper.

"I could be in about two seconds."

"Well don't, I'm not done yet."

What on earth this meant, Toph didn't know. At this point she was just letting Sokka run along with his plans—having been spoiled beyond her daydreams, Toph was ready for whatever Sokka had in mind. She arched her whole body in a stretch, hands in the air as she yawned, then rubbed her eyes and grinned as if to show that she was far from tired.

"All right, what've you got?" she said.

Sokka lowered himself to his knees once more. There was the distinct sound of him uncapping a bottle, and then of skin-on-skin. He was rubbing his hands together.

"Well," said Sokka, scooting forward until his knees bumped the bed, "what would be the point of soaking your feet if I wasn't going to massage them after?"

Toph let herself laugh at this comment, though she couldn't quite tell whether it was one of amusement or uncertainty. Perceptive as he was, Sokka noticed the apprehension in her tone and acted accordingly. He held up his hands, forearms out, bent at the elbow like a surgeon after scrubbing down.

"Don't worry, I'm pretty sure people do this all the time," he said. "And much as I hate to admit it, you're not the first recipient of my foot rubs."

"Katara need a little pampering every now and then?" she jibed.

"You're hilarious, but no."

The thought of Sokka dating other women used to jar her, especially in the first few years of his relationship with Suki. Now that she had dabbled with a handful of boys on her own, and now that she and Sokka were undeniably in it for the long stretch, the images could just roll over her shoulders without issue. It even helped ease that bizarre sense of trepidation, to realize that they needn't try to forget their past romances.

Sokka hooked one finger around Toph's ankle, a tiny gesture to alert her to his proximity. "Just… try to relax. Again."

He began at the top of her foot, at the tips of her toes, distributing the lotion evenly across the surface with gentle strokes.

"This stuff doesn't smell, does it?" said Toph, but her voice was muted—the effect had already taken her aback, and voicing her concern was her only way of keeping herself in check.

"It _shouldn't_," Sokka said. "It's made from sea kelp—a Water Tribe home remedy. The smell is very light, unless you expected someone to be sniffing your feet."

Toph straightened up and shook her shoulders out. A tiny shiver had somehow escaped up her spine without permission. "Carry on, then."

"I will, thanks," Sokka deadpanned.

As he began to knead his thumbs in slow circles around the ball of her foot, Sokka seemed to Toph as diligent as when he poured over his maps and scrolls. She would catch him kneeling over a chart of the Fire Nation with push pins dangling from his mouth, his face inches from the ground as if being so close made his marks that much more accurate. But he was not studying her feet, surely. The meticulous way in which he covered every last inch of her skin, leaving no toe untreated, said little for his feelings about feet in general. Though he was now rubbing a deep rhythm into the ball of her foot, Toph sensed that his attention was on the rest of her.

She had let herself fall back on the bed again. Her midsection weakened and collapsed at the beginnings of the massage, her body lay bonelessly across the blankets. Toph felt the groan rise up from the very pit of her belly, and stuffed her knuckles in her mouth so that a muffled yelp escaped instead. Rather than stop to ask if she was all right, Sokka moved right along to the arch of her foot. This particular patch of skin was less of a dirt magnet than the rest of her foot (though that didn't say much). Usually the hand maids, at this point sopping with soapy water a tired from battling the brazen Earthbender, would cut their losses and skip the tender arch. Sokka was not so merciful. He lightened the pressure to keep the tickling sensation at bay, but lingered longer than anyone had ever tried. When Toph tensed, Sokka balled his hand into a fist and worked it against her sole, moving down into long treads.

Toph flung an arm out and grabbed the nearest fistful of blanket, hanging on because it was the only alternative to letting an enraptured moan. Her breath was already coming in short, shallow puffs, caught somewhere between a laugh and something much more substantial than that.

It was then that she heard a tiny chuckle.

"You—!" she said through her knuckles. Toph struggled for a moment to prop herself high enough so that Sokka could see her glare. Failing that, she removed her hand from her mouth to point an accusing finger. "Quit—laughing—at me."

"I'm not!" Sokka insisted, which was an obvious lie. "Just… try to keep quiet, would you? If your parents hear, they'll kill me and mount my head on the wall."

Just to spite him for putting her through this terrible display of vulnerability, Toph arched her back and heaved a moan so intense that her voice cracked. Sokka gasped in terror but did not stop.

"_Shh_, Toph, they'll kill me!" he hissed.

Toph laughed. "Why? A man is entitled to please his wife if he likes!"

"That's true, except that we're _not married_."

"Well we'd better _get_ married, because you'll officially be doing this every night for the rest of my life."

Sokka grimaced at the joke, as if asking himself what he'd gotten into. After that last particularly enthusiastic display, Toph found herself too spent to react to the rest. She lay limp when he finally arrived at the base of her foot, the occasional jolt coursing up her leg and into her other limbs like a brilliant spark. In her euphoric state, she hardly noticed when he finished one foot and began the other. Toph settled into a sleepy lull of pleasure, spread-eagled and mouth slack, breath now at regular intervals despite her heart running double-time. She perked up once more when he reached the arch of her foot, but was too overwhelmed to tease him a second time. By the time Sokka finished the job, kissing the sole of each foot as if sealing a gift, Toph was not sure if she was conscious or dreaming. She listened as he wiped his hands on a cloth and tidied up. She counted his steps down the hall—his heavy footfalls discernible even through the thick mat upon which she slept—and beckoned him over when he returned.

If Sokka wanted to speak, his sharp-witted commentary would have to wait for another time. She kissed him at once and, pressing him down onto the overstuffed pillows, climbed up over him on her knees. There could be no proper reciprocation for the pampering which she had just endured, but Toph was all too keen to try.

xXx

Toph could not walk properly in the morning. Sokka had rendered her a softened fool, as if he had drawn the very muscles from her feet. She could not distribute her weight to one foot or another without an unusual tremor running up each leg, and thus shuffled around her dark bedroom for almost ten minutes before setting off toward the dining room.

She had not wanted to visit her family at all, had thought that she and Sokka might not survive the week through. But there was something in the way he shifted at the sight of her that next morning that said otherwise. When she appeared at the breakfast table to find poor Sokka already eating with her parents in a terrified silence, Toph put on the grumpiest face that she could muster and crossed to her seat. The slight limp in her step was almost imperceptible. Almost. And the undertone in Sokka's bright, "Good morning, Toph!" was almost too much to bear.

But she could manage.

xXx

_Fin._

* * *

_6 September 2011  
_


	18. Grim Publicity

A/N: Hello everyone! Long time no fic, eh? Well, just so you know, I am working on three fics for KataangForever's Tokka Week, which will take place over the second week of January! In the meantime, have this mini ficlet. I did the Prompt Meme on Tumblr (where my name is also Invaderk, if you were interested!), and this fic came from the request, "ATLA/Modern and Tokka or Kataang'. Now, my first response to an AU prompt is always a severely negative gut feeling! But then I remembered the modern AU I was writing a long time ago, which was the exact same story as ATLA but with modern technology... essentially, what we're going to see with Legend of Korra! WHO IS EXCITED? ME! In the meantime, I just have to live with this little fic, which takes place right after... well, you'll see.

Anyway, enjoy! I'm posting this in Cactus Juice rather than Oneshot Shorts because it features more Tokka than Kataang... but be warned, my Tokka Week fics are significantly more Tokka-filled! :D

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Happy Reading!

* * *

_Prompt Meme Fill_

Sokka trudged heavily down the concrete steps of the alleyway leading up to their apartment. The sun was only on the brink of rising, and a thin thread of pink had stretched itself across what he could see of the horizon through the high rises. Through his hour-long walk from the (overthrown) Earth King's bunker, he had a keen awareness of his bulging backpack, its weight compressing the length of his spine. The sway of the double holster around his shoulders, his assault pistols tucked safely at his waist, his machete clipped to the inside of his boot. Every sound edged his fingers to a weapon. If he had been followed in his venture, then none of their most recent sacrifices—Aang's sacrifice—was worth it.

Although, really, he had a hard time justifying the events that had taken place in the crystal catacombs, much less on his on his own front in the Earth King's throne room. The sting of loss still cramped his limbs, even after a week of group justifying. It was such a risky business, all of this. Katara had scoffed at his insistence that he take this little trip alone, but here he was, barrels and backpack full. Sometimes the plan just moves right along.

Sokka spotted a spark of light in the dark, a tiny amber pinprick hovering by the door he knew to be that of their temporary home. The place was mouldy and smelled of catchucks, but after this afternoon's public appearance they would be able to slip quietly from the Earth Kingdom. For this he was glad. Ducking through dark alleyways was frightening enough without the newly added risks.

As Sokka drew nearer, the spot of light became a lit cigarette caught between the fingers of Toph Bei Fong. She had sensed him coming, of course. His head-to-toe black ensemble did little against her perceptive 'sight'. She cocked her head toward him in grim acknowledgment.

"Did you get it?" she said, and mirrored Sokka's gesture when he nodded. "Good. Nobody followed you. I couldn't tell if it was a good sign or not."

"Kuei wasn't happy to hand it over, but we'll make better use of it than he will. He's not going to find the Dai Li when he's all nice and warm in his safe house."

Sokka surveyed Toph for a moment, allowing himself a tired smile at her expense. Katara had evidently succeeded in persuading Toph to join them in a few hours, for beneath her patched-up coat she wore a formal dress. The dress was modest but notable because Toph in a dress was almost unheard of. Yet somehow what struck him most was not the green gown, but the femininity of her pose. She leaned back against the wall's brick face with one arm crossed over her midriff, her elbow propped atop it, her hips silhouetted by the unfamiliar pull of the green fabric. He lingered a little longer on the curve of her slender figures, watching the smoke unfurl up between them.

"I thought you quit," Sokka said, helping himself to her cigarette.

Toph blew her smoke into his face and replied, "I did. I don't _smoke_, I am _having_ a smoke."

"Well good. Warriors like us need to keep in top shape." Sokka took another pull and passed the cigarette back. Their fingers brushed, but they took their time. "How's he doing?"

Toph jerked her head toward the door and said, "Groggy but awake. I'm giving them a moment."

"And here I thought you were awaiting my safe return all this time."

A smirk ticked in the corner of her mouth. "It was a very long moment," she said. Then she tossed the burning filter to the ground and Sokka stepped on it for her. "Come on, I'm sure he wants to see you."

The inside of the one bedroom apartment was dingy but warm. Toph and Sokka found Katara (not yet dressed up as Toph was, having more urgent matters in need of her attention) kneeling at Aang's bedside, half holding the Aang up in a sitting position. Sokka's first feeling was a strange pang of fear—the Avatar, the world's almighty savior, was bleeding through his bandages.

"Sokka…?"

Aang sounded as faint as expected, but the hint of confusion sounded strange in Sokka's ears until he remembered that he was wearing a hood. Sokka removed the pack from his shoulders and dropped it to the floor. He pulled his hood back, strode over to the bed made of folded blankets, and dropped to his knees to hug his friend.

"Good to see you up," said Sokka.

"Where were you?" said Aang, making an effort to return the embrace and wincing as a result. "Katara only just explained—" he broke off as his chin trembled, hung his head in shame for a brief moment before glancing toward Sokka's backpack. "Is—is that bag what you had to get from the Earth King?"

Sokka shook his head, reached into his jacket, and withdrew a stack of papers (which he quickly withdrew from Aang's reach upon Aang trying to snatch it). "Ah, nope! All rest for the Avatar until Katara says you can help. We need you to lay low."

"Why?"

"Because—well, let's say the public and the media have a very different idea about how things ended in your fight against Azula."

When Aang opened his mouth to ask what Sokka meant, Katara cut him off with a quick, "What's in the bag, Sokka? Did you get the stuff I asked for?"

"Sure did!"

Sokka shuffled over to his backpack. From inside he withdrew some water bottles (the tap water was an undrinkable shade of yellow and Katara hadn't been able to Waterbend all of the junk out), some bandages and antiseptic, a few cans of food, a massive bag of assorted hard candies (which he tossed to Toph, who cheered), and finally—

"Sokka, we're pinching pennies for food and you bought a _suit?_" Katara snapped.

Not visibly offended by his sister's snark, Sokka stood and began to remove his outer clothing. First he removed his jacket, then the double shoulder holster containing a pair of glocks, then the belt with his assault pistols and boomerang.

"Hey, if we're going to be on national television today, I want to look good! Who knows what pictures the media's going to use for us once Azula gets her grip tight enough. Also, I didn't use _our_ money, I permanently borrowed it from one of Kuei's agents."

"Fine. But don't lose it if you don't give it back, you might need it some other time."

"Let's hope not."

Next he bent to unlace his boots. Katara and Aang watched, the former with skepticism and the latter with mild concern, as Sokka drew his machete and slid it across the floor to Toph, who lifted her skirt enough to clip the weapon to a holster at her thigh. Satisfied with that wordless exchange, Sokka removed the last of his outer clothes and pulled the suit on over his underwear.

"Not bad!" Sokka said, turning to a mirror by the door to start knotting his tie. "Think you could hem the pants a bit, Katara? This body guard guy has really long legs."

"Sure," Katara deadpanned, clearly dissatisfied with both Sokka's request and his dubious means of obtaining the pants to begin with.

"Very nice, Sokka," said Aang, his voice still glazed over with the same bleary quality as his eyes. "But what's the occasion?"

Toph stopped rummaging through the candy bag at Aang's words. Katara frowned, cupping the back of Aang's head with one hand as if trying to transmit strength directly into his brain. Slowly, Sokka turned, straightened his tie, and gave his jacket a little tug.

"Your funeral."

xXx_  
_

_Fin._


	19. In Motion

A/n: Hello, and welcome to KF's first Tokka Week (not to be confused with the annual August Tokka Week hosted by the Tokka Fans United group on DA)! This week I have finished four lengthy Tokka fics, all of which will be posted here in this very collection! I am pretty excited about actually finishing everything on time this year.

This is definitely the longest and least shippy of the stories I have for this week. I've been working writing it on and off since August, based of a throwaway comment that my dear friend Snowy (currently AvatarSnowy on Tumblr) made that went something like: "If Sokka doesn't invent the car then I am going to be pissed." So here we are! I also owe thanks to Wherewulf (who will also be posting some Tokka this week on KF and this website under the same name - go check him out!), who helped me focus my ideas and add some much needed humor to a subplot with a lot of potential for seriousness. Also, apologies to metromax for shamelessly stealing the name of her OC without permission.

Disclaimer: I own nothing at all. Furthermore, I am not at all familiar with cars and had to research my way through the mechanics of this story.

Happy Reading, and I'll see you tomorrow as we continue Tokka Week!

* * *

_In Motion_

In the quiet morning of the city where they lived, the front door slid aside and crashed into its wooden frame. Toph Bei Fong leaped from the front step and began to run across the grass, to which the morning dew still clung. The air was almost as wet as her feet—it hung as a hazy summer curtain, begging for a storm to tear it down.

"I thought I was imagining things!"

Toph found Sokka at the end of the walkway up to the house, his fists perched on his hips as he appraised her. He threw his arms out and lifted her clear off the ground, set her down, and ducked the customary punch aimed at his shoulder.

"What are you doing on this side of the city?" she said.

Once the group decided upon moving to the city to keep close to the center of the post-war negotiations, Toph had assumed that she would see her friends almost every day. At least once a week, if they were all busy. This did not turn out to be the case. Aang and Katara spent most days traveling across the country, and Sokka spent his free time pulling apart bits of machinery when he wasn't going over international demobilization plans with Suki and the generals. Sokka and Suki had gotten married after they had turned twenty—it was a ceremony Toph remembered only in fragments, as the all-night party had entailed an open bar courtesy of King Kuei (and Toph was only trying to make the most of his investment).

It hardly seemed like two years had gone by since then, but as Toph considered all of the changes she had made in her own life—and those which had only begun to develop—she felt a distinct sense of distance, as if that party had actually been ten years earlier. They had grown, certainly. Not as much heightwise as Toph would have liked (Aang had fared far better in that department, though for a years it had been a close race), but certainly more emotionally than she'd expected. Other things had not changed at all. Her relationship with Sokka, for one.

"I had a… question for you," said Sokka. "But before I start asking for favors, how are you? How's Hotaru?"

Toph shrugged. "I'm great, he's great, we're great. Actually, he's not here. He's doing a job in Republic City for the next few days."

"Building some stuff, huh?"

"Yup."

"I don't ever think I've seen him sit down."

"Tell me about it."

Toph and Hotaru had been together for almost two years and lived together for the last ten months, much to the dismay of Toph's parents, who still wanted to marry her off to a rich merchant's son. It was with some resignation that Toph acknowledged her single life was coming to a close. Her parents would have had her married at seventeen, so she supposed she should count herself lucky. Whatever that meant.

Though Hotaru knew he would never have to work another day if he married into Toph's family, he became so restless at the prospect of stagnation that he picked up a second job in Earthbending construction. Most of the jobs were domestic, but every so often he traveled to nearby cities to aid in new projects that were blossoming as a result of the post-war economy. Aside from his workaholic tendencies, he was quite laid back and took changes with ease… a good match for Toph, who preferred the constant motion of her traveling days.

"So what about this favor?" she pressed.

"Okay, well, I've been working on this one for a while…" Sokka sighed, as if his effort to funnel his thoughts into speech had only scrambled them more. "When we were traveling a lot… I always thought it was silly that the Fire Nation had balloons and tanks while we had to make Appa carry us all over the world."

"Don't tell me you're streamlining the balloon design for everyday use?" said Toph.

Sokka laughed. "I wish, but no. This is more like a streamlined tank. A very, very streamlined tank. It's a sort of… I don't know, self-propelling vehicle small enough to ride on a small road."

Toph gave herself a moment to consider the idea… almost immediately she thought of how nice it would be to cut the transit time and not have to rely on Appa when taking trips. Or not have to wait for the train only to sit next to the smelly man with too many children. Or better, to do away with the train altogether!

"That sounds brilliant, Sokka!" she said. "But how will you make it go?"

Sokka waved his hand as if her concern were a bothersome gnat.

"Don't worry, I'll explain it all later," he said. "The main problem right now is that I haven't got the time to build a solid frame. I _could_ do it myself, but it might take weeks. The whole thing would go much faster if I had a Metalbender to help me out…"

"Count me in," Toph said at once, quick to accept whatever challenge he may pose to distract her from her lonely vacation. "My Metalbending student is gone for the week and I thought I was going to die of boredom, so your timing is perfect."

"Great! I didn't want to admit it just in case you couldn't help, but I couldn't do it without you."

Toph couldn't keep the grin from rising to her face. She received compliments on an almost daily basis, enjoying them as one might enjoy a particularly rich piece of cake. Sokka's unconditional faith in her talent, however… she could _bathe_ in that.

xXx

Toph and Sokka left for his house almost immediately, stopping only so that Toph could dictate a note for Hotaru in case he returned home before her. Once Sokka had folded the note and placed it on the kitchen table, Toph stuffed a change of clothes into her knapsack and they headed out into the morning. Sokka chattered on about recent goings-on as they walked, stopping every so often to hear her commentary. By the time they had taken the two trains and a cart across the city, Toph's ears felt pleasantly muffled by the noise of his voice.

Upon arriving and Sokka and Suki's home, Toph noticed the change and wondered why Sokka had not stopped to mention it. Suki, who Toph had not seen in quite some time, came out to meet them at the front door.

"Hey Toph, Sokka!"

Pausing to kiss her husband, Suki ushered them into the tiny house. Toph stopped to hug Suki on her way through, opened her mouth to comment on the notable alteration, then stopped herself and instead jibed, "Hope you don't mind if I don't kiss you, too."

"Only if you're sure," said Suki. "Let me know if you change your mind."

"Don't worry sweet cheeks, I will."

The house's familiar smell blew over Toph's head like a particularly forceful wave, knocking her back to her mid-teens, when she saw her family as much as she liked and spent hours sitting with them around a room very similar to this one.

She had been to this house many times over the past two years, too. Sokka had described the rooms to her in gross detail, so that while she could not see the islands on his giant textured map, she knew what every tangible detail meant. The master bedroom remained, as far as she could tell, in the exact same fashion as she had left it. In the guest bedroom, though, there appeared to have been a small explosion—through the closed door she felt that the floor was littered with miscellaneous machine parts, from tiny metal scraps to bulky sections of what may have been a Fire Nation tank. No doubt Suki had closed the door to keep Sokka's personal laboratory from seeping throughout the rest of the house. The mess surprised Toph, as Sokka's workplace was usually as pristine as the Earth King's palace—it was clear that the project had overcome the more reasonable corners of his mind.

Suki took Toph's bag in exchange for a full-to-bursting water skin.

"The mess is even worse in his 'workshop'," she said as they followed Sokka to the back door. "Try to stay hydrated. And Toph, please—" she set a hand on Toph's shoulder and leaned in as if to whisper, though when she spoke she was plenty loud enough for Sokka to hear, "either talk some sense into him or get this thing done as quick as possible."

Toph grinned. "I hear you."

"And please don't hurt yourselves. Katara's not here to paste you back together."

"Don't worry, I'll take good care of him," said Toph, already retreating, and together Toph and Sokka stepped out into the sun.

Suki had been right in her exasperation—the house was bad enough, but the real mess resided in the wooden shed out back. It spanned across the upper right corner of the yard, shabbily-assembled with old panels and a holey roof. Toph and Sokka ducked behind the curtain draped across the wide opening and waded through a mountain of scraps. The air drooped with humidity and the smell of mechanical grease.

"Well," he began resignedly, "now you know why I haven't been around to visit in a while."

She stacked the countless metal sheets into one corner while Sokka organized all the tiny pieces into containers along the opposite wall. By the end of the first hour, the dirt floor was plainly visible beneath the remaining rubble, an occasional tuft of grass springing back up here and there. And in the very center of the shed, perched up on four blocks of wood was a massive squarish box. Sokka brushed his palm along its surface as he passed by.

"Toph, I'd like you to meet my first born," he said.

"He looks just like you!" Toph replied, reaching for the water skin.

The labor had not been much, but already Toph felt drained. The sweltering heat of the shed would not help her much on this endeavor, but nor would lingering on that which was dragging her energy down. She gulped from the pouch before joining Sokka outside, where he had deposited himself on a patch of sun-baked earth and unfurled a long sheet of paper.

As he spoke, Sokka smoothed the edges of the paper down flat with the tips of his fingers. "This is the blueprint for my engine! Well, the rest of the thing is on here too, but I'm mostly proud of the engine."

"That's nice and all, but I'm not going to be much help unless you can explain it in perfect detail," Toph said.

"Please, Toph, have a little faith."

Sokka drew a thin strip of wood from his pocket and held it up for approval. Then, when Toph merely continued to stare blankly somewhere over his left shoulder, he held it like a writing quill and plunged it through the paper.

Toph gasped, first because Sokka had just punctured a hole in his beloved schematic, and then because she realized the rationale behind this gesture. As Sokka cut lines into the ground, the image appeared in her mind, clear as a set of fresh footprints. The tool moved like a blade through the paper, and within a few minutes he had traced every last line, curve, and notation straight into the earth.

"How's it look?" he said at last.

"Like you're a _genius_," Toph said, visibly awed. "Did you figure this all on your own?"

He shrugged. "Sort of. I got to pick apart a Fire Nation tank for ideas, but their steam engines are enormous. It was a lot of material to try and downsize. And anyway, don't get too excited—" he heaved himself up and started back to the shed again, rolling his tattered paper as he went (she hoped he had a second copy), "I don't even know if it'll work."

"I guess we'll find out soon."

"I guess we will."

They worked from the inside out, first to finish the engine proper before they could begin on the water heater and pipes. Sokka set her up with a box of miscellaneous metal pieces and had her begin on separate parts that they could then weld into the bigger structure. Toph had been correct in anticipating that this job would be effort intensive—by its very nature, Metalbending took more exertion and focus than its more basic Earthbending. She could tear things apart with a few well-placed jabs and a little muscle, but shaping tiny facets of exact measurement took forever and left her exhausted. With Toph painstakingly Bending each piece and Sokka fitting them together, she was reminded of the long hours in which Sokka forged his first sword (which, sadly, still lay at the bottom of the sea). The stifling hot was the same, the sweat prickling on their hair lines and running down like teardrops. Focused as they were, though, somehow regular conversation interjected itself into the technical talk. They discussed what Aang had read in Zuko's latest report—that everything was going well, save for a few small loyalist groups who were only now adjusting to Zuko's rule.

"It only took them seven years," Toph said, passing Sokka a pipe that she had just fashioned out of a sheet of metal.

"Yeah, seven years of Zuko taking orders and trying to keep those entitled jerks happy," Sokka said. He had his head submerged in the engine block, and his voice was both muffled and reverberated by the barrier. "I don't know how he did it without losing his mind."

"His uncle has a good temper, maybe they balanced each other out."

"Even so." He resurfaced to shake his head in disapproval. "If it were me, I'd tell them to take their demands and shove it right up their—oh, _monkeyfeathers!_"

In the process of making a grand, vulgar gesture with one of the pipes, Sokka smacked a wooden support block and bumped it an inch out of place. The block snapped and collapsed, the engine careened on its three remaining legs, and Sokka swore again. Toph jumped up as the engine began to fall and, striking a stance, shot another support up from the ground. There was a moment of tremulous creaking, a silence as specks of dirt drifted down around their ankles, and finally Toph relented her pose. Groaning in relief, Sokka gingerly set the offending pipe down.

"Nice catch," he said sheepishly. "Sorry about that."

"Yeah…"

Toph was not listening. She had sat back down and was pushing her damp hair out of her eyes with both hands. Quick as her rescue had been, it brought on an awful wave of fatigue that nearly knocked her over. Her brain did a somersault in her skull. Sokka was across the shed before she realized she had grasped for the waterskin and missed; he tied the sheet away from the door of the shed to let the fresh air roll in, then knelt at her side.

"Toph, are you all right?"

He went to grab the water for her, which sat mere inches to the side, but she slapped his hand away and snatched it up herself. Toph took a drink to clear her addled brains before she said, "I'm fine. Just getting old."

In the face of admitting that she was actually tired—exhausted, in fact—taking the route of the cheap joke was the quickest response Toph could bear. Luckily, Sokka was too preoccupied by his invention to see past her humor (or to see that her face had turned a delicate shade of green).

"I guess old is relative," he chuckled, albeit apprehensively. "We could take a little break if you need one."

"Don't get all noble on me," Toph snapped, and took another gulp. "I want to at least finish all the individual pieces by dinner."

"If you're sure…"

"I am sure."

And so they went, moving as efficiently as before.

Somehow they got on the topic of children. Sokka must have really wanted to get into the discussion, because Toph had put a great deal into diverting every time they got anyplace near it. He had mentioned in passing his thoughts and fears before today, generally in unspoken confidence and never with such persistence as he did now. Toph had to give him some credit for his effort. He began with the easy, roundabout topic of Aang and Katara.

"Did you know they've got another one on the way?"

There must be something in the water, Toph thought. Maybe something about the season—she would have assumed winter, not spring, would be the months of choice, what with not having anything better to do. Rather than share these somewhat dark notes with her companion, Toph answered with a distracted "Yup" and smoothed the burrs off the end of a thick round disc. Sokka had called it a valve (or was it piston? She forgot, there was both of them somewhere).

"I can't believe Tenzin is so big already. He'll probably be too old to play with our kids by the time _we're_ having them."

"Don't worry so much," Toph said.

Sokka stopped what he was doing to turn around and look at her. His tone of voice threatened a halfhearted smile that she couldn't quite place.

"What do you think, Toph? Looking forward to chasing screaming Earthbenders around?" he said.

"I try not to think about it," she said. "This is the last piece, let's lay them out so we can put them together after we eat."

Sokka's effort to talk about the dreaded 'future' was successfully derailed by this proposition from Toph. He checked her work against the measurements in his schematic one last time before setting all the parts in order. There were two main sets of pieces, one for the fuel source and water tank, and another for the engine proper. The very ground beneath her seemed to creak with the weight of it all. Toph couldn't imagine a single passenger vehicle being able to carry all this bulk on its back. Then the image of a giant warship floated across her memory and she stood quite corrected—if something so grand could fly, then they would be rolling around town in no time at all.

xXx

Dinner was a pleasant enough affair, laid-back and easy in banter. Toph had long since gotten used to being the odd number when Team Avatar came together and compensated by not commenting on it at all. It had almost been too weird when she started carting Hotaru around to all of their war hero activities. The first time he met Aang, Toph thought Hotaru was going to wet himself from nerves (and was just a little offended that he hadn't been as thrilled when he met _her_).

Tonight conversation flowed as free as the water that they drank. Somewhere along the line Suki had stopped serving booze when Toph and Sokka were at the same event, as their shenanigans more often resulted in property damage than her sanity could afford—that, and she was probably also tired of being banned from all of the local bars courtesy of her husband being a very persuadable and enthusiastic lightweight.

Though the title of "best house cook" was debatable, Toph was willing to give Suki her vote for tonight's meal. By the time they set down their utensils on empty plates and leaned back, Toph was satisfied and half asleep. Nobody tried to persuade her to do otherwise when she announced that she would be sleeping on the sitting room floor. She happily cleared a space for herself and stretched out on it, letting her joints pop and muscles groan. The tiny room dimmed into a peaceful quiet, where the noise of the city subsided into the hum of cricket song and an occasional breeze. Suki and Sokka's voices drifted down from their room, muffled. When their chatter gave way to Sokka's snores, Toph rolled over on one side and fell asleep to the sound, thinking that it was almost like old times.

xXx

They spent the first half of the next day standing over the metal mechanism and the latter half beneath. The pieces became components of the engine block, several distinct sections welded together by Toph's masterful hands and held up by several more support blocks. The system was beginning to look as it would at the end—the coal heater was in the very back, connected directly to the water tank, which would heat and send steam to the engine proper. After a near explosion during a test run with the fuel, they fixed a pipe on to the back end so that the exhaust could escape without puffing up into the faces of the passengers. Toph was becoming more and more certain that this contraption would earn Sokka a place in mechanical history; the details were so intricate that, though she knew each individual section intimately, she still struggled to keep track of how they all intertwined. Her lack of engineering talent made little difference as long as Sokka was there to guide her craft.

Suki appeared at random to make sure they had water and hadn't dropped anything heavy on themselves. Every time she arrived (usually with a plate of fruit, for which they were immensely grateful), Toph waited for someone to comment on the condition which she thought quite notable. They didn't, though they did discuss the news that Suki brought from her visit with the Fire Nation family down the street. She had established a good rapport with the reserved couple and often learned from them the public opinions that were not included in Zuko's reports from overseas. This she communicated with the team as well as the ambassadors, which had so far yielded a positive change in the way Zuko could manage his government. Aside from this recent undertaking, the recent wave of calm that had settled over the city had left Suki with more time to herself, to train with the girls at the dojo—and to worry about whether her husband had crushed himself under his latest invention.

It was late in the evening that Suki arrived to find two pairs of pare feet sticking out from beneath the giant hunk of metal. From beyond her vision came their dimmed voices.

"Here, tighten this one—okay, good."

"What, where's the grease going to _go_ once it runs through?"

"Out this way. See here, this second pipe—?"

"Oh, okay, I got it. So then we connect these two and—" Toph gave a small grunt of effort and the sound of creaking metal signified that she had melted the pieces into one. "Ta da!"

"I don't think I'll ever get over how amazing it is that you invented Metalbending," said Sokka.

"I don't think I'll ever get tired of hearing you say that. Oh, and Suki's here."

The grease-smeared faces of Toph and Sokka reappeared after a moment of shuffling. While Sokka raved to his wife about their latest accomplishments, Toph straightened up, felt briefly that the world was turning upside-down, and pressed her palms to her temples as if to keep her head from swiveling off.

"Can I get a drink, by any chance?" she asked, cutting into Sokka's physics explanation. "I think I'm starting to get dehydrated."

Suki brightened at the opportunity to help. "Of course!" she said. "Come with me. I just cut up some papaya."

Ignoring the sound of Sokka's distressed groan at the word "papaya", Toph and Suki set off for the house while sokka lingered back to consult his blueprint for the thousandth time. Toph followed Suki in through the back door, accidentally bumping into the frame as she went. She was dizzier than she thought, apparently, but a little water and sometime to eat should set her right quick. At least right enough to keep herself together in front of Sokka.

Once alone with Suki, however, Toph realized that she had far less restraint than she did with Sokka. It was only a minute after sitting down at a plate of papaya slices that she let her observation surface from her mouth for the first time.

"Why haven't you told Sokka you're pregnant?"

A loud clank indicated that Suki had dropped Toph's cup of water into the washbasin.

"How did you know?" Suki demanded, spinning on the spot to appraise the Earthbender.

In response, Toph raised a finger and pointed at her own eyes. "With my vision, I can _always_ tell. Maybe Aang would be able to tell too if he was here, but he's not as observant as me."

Suki's weight buckled against her knees and she sagged where she stood, drooping against the countertop and letting a long breath escape as if she had been holding it for a very long time.

"You haven't… told him, right?" she said warily.

"'Course not!" Toph helped herself to some papaya, looking quite unaffected. Almost as an afterthought she added, "You might want to let him in on the secret, though. I think he might be having a nervous breakdown."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, since I've been here he's brought up the topic of children so many times that my ears are starting to ache. And a few weeks ago he told me that he was starting to feel, ah, a little _inadequate_. If you know what I mean."

Suki slipped even further down the counter in evident shock. "He _told_ you that?"

"We tell each other everything. Well, almost." Toph paused to appreciate the private joke at her own expense, plucking up another papaya slice and dropping it into her mouth. "But anyhow, you should get along with it. He'll feel a lot better if you do."

Suki returned to the cup of water, in part to occupy herself with something other than staring slack-jawed at Toph. She brought two full glasses across the room to the table, set one down before Toph, and took a seat across from her.

"I just… wanted to be sure," she said, after a long pause.

"You're, what, four months along?"

"Five."

"Holy—!" Toph's brows shot skyward. "How much more sure could you get?"

Suki sighed, helping herself to the platter of fruit and leaning forward on her elbows. "It's just… kind of scary. I know we're ready, but at the same time, I don't want it to change anything. You know how he can be a little… overprotective."

Toph chuckled. "That I do."

"He probably won't let me leave the house once he knows, much less run a dojo and help out the ambassadors. I'm going to lose all of those opportunities in a few months anyway, so why take away the little time I have left?"

"I don't know about _that_," Toph said. "Aang and Katara have kids and they _both_ do more than any one of us! And let's be honest here, you put Sokka in his place a long time ago. He's got no say in how you spend your time."

"I guess so," said Suki, with a nervous laugh.

Toph reached across the table and patted Suki's hands where they lay folded atop the table. Before she could pull it away, Suki had turned her hand and grasped Toph's in her own. Toph gave it a squeeze and offered a crooked smile. "Don't worry, you have each other. You'll be great parents."

"Thank you, that means a lot."

"No problem. Now, I've gotta go back out before he blows up the whole yard."

She downed her glass in one decisive swig, grabbed one last mouthful of papaya, and rose from her seat. On her way out the door, she stuck one finger out and brushed it against the doorframe—she'd had to reorient herself in space more than ever recently, but never with such gestures as this. The thought of what it could mean for her, the troublesome matter that she had yet to confront aloud, made her stop halfway through the door and turn around.

"Do you have any Benders in the family?" she asked.

Upon hearing the odd question, Suki turned bodily in her chair to face Toph.

"No," said Suki, confused. "Why?"

Toph smirked and shrugged and started off again. "Oh, nothing really. It's just a good thing Katara lives so close by, you know? I think she'll be a real help in a couple years."

She left Suki with her mouth agape.

xXx

On the third morning, Toph and Sokka trudged back into the shed with their shoulders set, sore and exhausted but more determined than ever to finish this colossal project. Despite Toph's wishes that the vehicle complete itself overnight, they found the engine just as they left it: sitting expectantly on its blocks, fully assembled. Around it lay the clutter that had migrated from the spare bedroom, which had morphed into various forms over the last days—pipes, bundles of detangled wire set in long lines, an entire frame complete with wheel-less axles and a steering mechanism.

Toph limbered up by jogging in place and throwing a few punches into the air, then wincing as her muscles protested in vain. "Much as I enjoy spending time with you, I'd like this to be over," she said.

At her comment, Sokka stopped stretching and proceeded to the very back of the shed, where he double-checked his inventory of sheet metal. After a moment of silent counting, he nodded.

"Let's mount it on the frame so we can test it out," he said. "We'll put the seats on last."

There was an alarming moment where, after Toph had lifted the entire engine into the air with a spectacular Earthbending effort and set it down on the frame, the vehicle's metal skeleton trembled under the intrusive weight. Sokka immediately threw out his arms as if the mechanism would not squish him if he tried to catch it, then hopped anxiously from toe to toe until the groaning metal ceased. The frame held. Both Toph and Sokka breathed again, though Toph remained poised for attack for some time after, ready to catch it if her welding job should fail. Sokka opened the small door of the fuel tank and lit the coals within it.

After they had screwed the engine into place and welded the reinforcements, the time arrived for the moving machine's first start. While Sokka went to fetch Suki from inside, Toph hunched over the open frame to make a few last-second adjustments. She smoothed away any extra ridges, rapped on the pipes to ensure their connectedness, put pressure on the frame to ensure that it would bounce back from the bumps in the road. Once she crossed off the last of her mental checklist, Toph turned the lock of the fuel tank and stoked the burning coals, noting that the lack of smoke escaping through the connectors indicated that their design could withstand substantial heat. She continued on to assessing the wheel axles, head bent in concentration, as Sokka explained to Suki the basics of the engine.

"…and then, after the coal heats the water, the steam builds up pressure and bang! Moving parts!"

"Let's hope it doesn't go up with a _bang_," said Toph under her breath.

Suki glanced back and forth Sokka's sooty face and the machine. The rectangular support frame for the engine and its parts sat upon the steering mechanism, four more metal rods sticking straight up from the four corners. Finally, she asked, "Where do you sit?"

Sokka laughed. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, where a pair of lumpy hand-stitched cushions sat upon a shelf. "We haven't put the seats on yet! It's kind of naked at the moment. I thought we should make sure it works before we put the final touches on."

"Fair enough."

"So let's find out, shall we? Toph, is the water boiling yet?"

"For a little while now," said Toph, stepping aside and stretching out her back. "Crank away, O mighty Enginebender."

Both ladies gave Sokka a wide space as he positioned himself before the crank separating the steam from the engine block. Though Toph had aided in getting him to this point, she felt little responsibility for his pending success. He had invented the Bending-based submarine, but never anything to mechanical as this, and never on his own. Sokka had spent countless hours with this much more advanced project, tinkering and working out long equations and likely sacrificing sleep for progress. This was his moment, and Toph was glad to step back and watch from a distance.

Sokka spat on his hands and rubbed them together, settled himself at eye level with the mechanism, took the crank, and with a effortful grunt _pushed_—

Nothing happened. Startled but not diverted, Sokka squared his shoulders heaved all of his weight into it. The crank did not give way at once but rather crept along its fixed point, squeaking sharp enough for Toph to cover her hears, until clicking into place on the other side. Sokka held it down in place, panting as a hissing noise rushed from one end of the vehicle to another. After just a few seconds of the shrill hissing of steam, the engine spluttered to life with such a roar that Toph and Suki both leapt backward to dodge any flying parts from the pending explosion. At the sudden noise, Sokka let go of the crank, which flew back with astounding speed and smacked him square in the forehead.

"Ouch!" he cried, but then cut himself off with an ecstatic, "It works!"

He was right. The unnatural thrumming beneath Toph's coal-dusted feet was just like that of the Fire Nation tanks, but lighter—a sensation she had thankfully never experienced in her little hometown of Gaoling. The ground shifted with the creak of each welded joint settling into place, pumping steam through the pressurized tubes and out the back of the engine. By the time it stopped about ten seconds after it began, the three of them were gagging in the residual smoke cloud. A wave of cool air drove past as Suki tore curtain away from the door, but they all retreated outside after just a few moments of the unbearable exhaust. Sokka was bent over double with coughing, one arm wrapped around his stomach while his other hand rubbed what would later become a sizeable welt on his forehead. Toph flopped down beside where Suki was already sitting in the sparse grass. The humidity had passed without rain, and the sun's warmth was nothing in comparison to the shed. Even with all of its windows, the temperature still felt a hundred degrees worse inside. Toph laid back to let the breeze skim across her face. Sokka straightened up and scrutinized the shed.

"I need to work on something to hold the crank in place, but otherwise it works perfect! Toph, let's just finish the seating and then we…" He turned to see both Toph and Suki laid out on their backs. "Or we could take a break."

Toph sat up at once, dizzy but resolute. "No more breaks! Let's do this."

"Great!" Sokka touched his fingertips to his forehead. "Also, I'm bleeding."

One bandage later, Toph and Sokka were back in the shed. As Toph had crafted the metal seat the previous day, it took her very little time to assemble it on the frame. Sokka helped her line up the pieces after she had hoisted it into place. Though the thick pipes slid right over the posts on the frame's four corners, she still melted the metals together to lock them in place. Now the vehicle looked almost drivable, though it in no way resembled the tanks from which it was inspired—borne up on mismatched scrap metal and shaped by hand, Sokka's creation looked rickety and volatile in comparison to the Fire Nation's hulking tanks. Appearances made no difference, though. After climbing onto the seat and jumping up and down a few times, Toph announced that everything would hold in place.

It took Sokka a bit longer to fix the crank switch, but an extra spring and a locking mechanism ensured that it would not only be easier to move, but that it was also less likely to kill anybody who tried to get it to stay in place. The last task was securing the wheels on their axles, which, compared to everything else that had accomplished today, was laughably simple. It took all of five minutes to get the wide tires in place, and even less for Toph to tighten the chain that would turn them. She removed the support blocks with a few Earthbending jabs, and then the only task that remained was to start it up.

Together, Toph and Sokka pushed the rolling contraption out the wide shed door and into the yard. Once again, Toph stepped back to allow Sokka his moment of glory as he stood before the crank. He rapped his knuckles against the frame, checked the coals to make sure they were burning, and had started re-assessing the wheel bearings before Toph realized she was tapping her foot.

"Stop procrastinating, Sokka. I may have all day, but I'd still rather not stand here until the sun goes down."

Sokka jumped, sighed, and nodded. "You're right. I'm ready! …Well, we could probably tighten the—"

"Just start it already!"

The crank required less muscle to turn this time, and did not rebound in a violent swing after Sokka let it go. The sound of steam flooding the pipes filled their ears again, and when the engine started Toph was more prepared for the clamor. What neither of them expected, however, was that the vehicle would take off without them. As the engine exploded into noise, the moving parts within set the gears in motion, which started the cyclical turning of the chains, which in turn turned the wheels at the same speed. Before either Toph or Sokka could react, the entire cart began chugging across the yard.

Sokka gave a surprised shout as his invention set off without him, but he was so thrilled with its success that he didn't bother chastising himself for forgetting to lock the brakes first. He turned bodily to face Toph, who stood waving the residual smoke out of her face, and cleared his throat.

"Lady Bei Fong," he began, offering her his outstretched hand, "would you like to accompany me on the world's very first road mobile?"

Toph couldn't help but grin as she accepted his hand. "It would be an honor, Mr. Sokka."

Joined together, they took off after the vehicle and caught up before it could crash into a nearby hedge. Sokka clambered up the driver's side and took the wheel, Toph following shortly thereafter to the passenger's seat. It was a rough ride made only marginally more comfortable by the cushions Sokka had sewn (cushions for which Toph quickly became grateful, despite her teasing him on his needlework). The vehicle jolted with each little bump in the stone street, threatening to toss them overboard. Toph could see well enough, though the engine's hum interfered with the natural vibrations of the metal, but not sufficiently to take the wheel. She would have felt a little anxious, in fact, were it not for one tiny issue:

"It's kind of slow, isn't it?" came Suki's voice from the ground.

Sokka peered over the edge to see Suki walking alongside the cart. The top of her head came up just to the platform where Toph and Sokka's feet rested. Sokka grinned down at her, reaching for the gear stick between he and Toph.

"It goes faster!" he said, and pushed the stick forward. Toph heard the engine kick up, but nothing happened to indicate that the vehicle was moving any faster than a dead crawl. Sokka chuckled meekly. "Well, it'll go faster once I mess with it a little. We'll be zooming down the streets in no time!"

"We'd better warn everyone about the impending destruction of their flower boxes," said Suki with mock resignation, then laughed. "Congratulations, Sokka! I'm so proud of you."

He reached for her hand, then bent down to kiss the backs of her fingers.

"Thank you."

xXx

Toph returned home the following morning, having stayed late for a celebratory dinner. Judging by the crowd that had formed and followed Toph and Sokka on their joy ride down the street, the interest in these self-propelling carts was enough motivation to keep Sokka busy on perfecting his design. In no time at all, she was sure he would have a team of engineers ready to put the things together by the dozen. They all went to sleep happy, full of food and hope for the future's travelers, and slept in late into the morning.

As Toph suspected, Hotaru had already made it back to the house. And as Toph suspected, he was sprawled across the rug, asleep. She paused in the doorway of the room, letting her hands wander over her belly as she listened to her boyfriend's breathing. Either the sound of the door or Toph's sudden presence in the room roused him from his nap, for he awoke with a cough and smiled up at her from the floor.

"Hey," he greeted her. "I got your note. How did it go?"

"It works. Sokka's going to be famous for this one," Toph answered. "Even more famous, that is."

Rather than elaborate on how she had spent the last three days, Toph let the silence fall between them like a dense and foggy cloud. Slowly Hotaru sat up, stretched until he shuddered, and leaned his elbows on his crossed legs. Toph continued to stand motionless in the doorway. "Is something wrong?"

"No."

Toph paused just a moment longer before relenting. She let her legs carry her across the room and eased down beside him, facing him but with her blind gaze angled down. At once he took her hand and pressed it between his palms, dwarfing her little wrists and fingers by comparison. Toph could feel the dirt still hanging on from whatever job he'd finished in Republic City, a thin layer separating his skin from hers. She had handled this weighty turn in her life alone, selfishly harboring emotions better shared. Hotaru would not have wanted her to keep quiet this long.

"I'm pregnant. I'm sorry."

Toph felt Hotaru's hands tighten fleetingly around hers and braced for him to pull away. Calm, laid-back Hotaru, who took challenges in stride and surprises unplanned opportunities, could not help but jolt in terror as she dropped it all on him at once.

Finally, after what felt like an hour but was really only seconds, he let out a long breath and said, "Why on earth are you sorry?"

Not terror, but excitement. She heard the lofty swing in his voice and her head snapped up from its defeated pose. "Because I'm asking you for the biggest commitment anyone could ever ask!" she exclaimed, and realized that a lump was forming in her throat. She swallowed it back down, mortified; in none of her rehearsed confessions did she ever anticipate tears. "I didn't even know if you wanted kids."

Hotaru chuckled. "I never really thought about it, to be honest. But maybe sometimes it's better to just go with it."

Toph's shoulders drooped as the weight of her admission slid off and disappeared. She let her head fall on Hotaru's shoulder and sighed, the weight of his hand secure on her knee.

"I've been wanting to tell you for a while," she said. "If I knew it would be this easy, I'd have done it a long time ago."

"Wh—how far along are you, exactly?"

"… Five months."

"_Five?_" Hotaru released her hands to grab her shoulders and hold her at arm's length. "How are you not showing yet?"

"I am!"

No longer burdened by guilt and flooded with a sudden rush of affection, Toph shuffled backward and straightened up on her knees. She pulled the hem of her tunic up to the base of her chest, exposing her pale midriff. When Toph took a breath and relaxed her abdomen, out popped the smooth curve of her belly, barely straining against her shorts.

"I haven't really popped yet, but it's still been exhausting to suck it in all the time," she said in a rush, unaware that she was smiling. "It's an Earthbender, I can already tell. I know people say you can't know for sure until they start Bending, but there's something about the way they move when they're Benders, even before they're born…"

Hotaru stared, flabbergasted, at the bump that he would never believe was there just moments ago. He looked from Toph's beaming face (half-obscured with her tunic held up in front of it) to her belly, and back up again. Then he closed his hanging jaw.

"You just spent three days doing heavy Metalbending!" he cried.

"Yeah," said Toph, "I couldn't hide it all the time either; I thought for sure Sokka would figure it out. Luckily he's about as dense as a tree trunk, so."

"What were you thinking?" said Hotaru, not in the possessive tone that Suki feared from Sokka, but rather in exasperation.

"I was very careful," said Toph. It was probably best not to mention the chronic fatigue and near fainting spells that had accompanied her venture with Sokka.

"I hope so."

"Then your hopes are realized." Sighing, Toph let her tunic fall back into place, where the baggy fabric completely hid her bump even when she wasn't trying to hide it. "The thing is, I never really thought I'd have kids. What if I'm not cut out for this parenting thing? I know from experience how easy it is for parents to screw it all up."

She settled back down beside Hotaru and let him pull her into his lap. She wrapped her arms around his broad torso and set her chin on his shoulder, blowing her hair out of her face with a puff of breath.

"Toph, you're cut out for anything you set your mind to. We're going to be just fi—_uh oh._" Hotaru and Toph both froze as his thought was derailed. "Toph, your _parents_. They'll kill me once they find out!"

Toph laughed at this, taken aback by Hotaru's genuine fear. "They might try! Luckily, they love me more than they hate you, so I think in the long run we'll be okay."

"I guess that's all we could ask for."

Toph tightened her hold around Hotaru's waist, kissed his temple, and smiled.

xXx

_Fin._


	20. Three And One Times Toph Cried

A/n: Welcome to day two of Tokka Week! The "Three Times X Happened and One Time It Didn't" fic is immensely popular, but I don't think I've ever written one before (given that doing so often requires wit that I do not possess). However, in the spirit of Tokka Week, I have written one from Toph's perspective and one from Sokka's. So let us begin!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Happy Reading!

* * *

Three Times Toph Cried (And One Time She Didn't)

_One: When Everything Seemed Funny_

Almost directly after the Harmony Restoration Movement came to its successful conclusion, Sokka enrolled at Ba Sing Se University and began attending classes three times a week. This meant only two things to Toph. One, that they would be stuck in the walled city for a year longer than she had hoped. Two, that Sokka withdrew deeper into his most recently acquired hobby: reading.

Even since returning from the war, Sokka had developed the annoying habit of reading anything and everything—scrolls, books, flyers posted on the train, the tag on the back of Toph's shirt. His logic was that the library had saved them during the war and could thus save them in their everyday lives too, but Toph suspected that he simply enjoyed it. For hours each morning, he would drape himself across the floor cushions and disappear into a place where Toph could not reach him unless she yelled loud enough or flung something at his head.

When one morning she found him wandering around the kitchen with his head buried in a cookbook and discovered that he was planning an anniversary dinner for Aang and Katara, she offered to accompany him to the marketplace.

The trouble was that, at the pace they were currently going, they would not make it back in time to cook anything. Sokka carried the open book in his palms as he walked, his head bent low over the pages. Accordingly, he moved so slow that Toph could stop for minutes at a time and then catch back up with him at normal walking pace. After about five minutes of this, when they had barely gotten out of the upper ring, Toph gave a frustrated growl and stopped altogether. Sokka, who had been trailing behind her, bumped right into her back before realizing that something had changed. He looked up from the text, brows aloft.

"What's wrong?" he said.

"You move slower than a giant jellyslug!" said Toph, throwing her hands in the air. "Is this really the time for homework?"

Sokka shook his head, jabbing a finger at the page as if the gesture meant something to Toph. "This is a cookbook! I have to find the right recipe before we get to the store, don't I?"

"At this rate, we'll never get to the store."

"Okay, okay, then just give me a few minutes," said Sokka, who then fell silent as he disappeared back into bookland.

They were standing on the sidewalk of a busy middle ring street. Passers-by stared at Toph and Sokka, most likely wondering why Sokka had even bothered to leave his house if he was just going to stop in the middle of town and read some more. Toph was thinking the same thing. She let him stand there for about three seconds before she grew tired of waiting and, with an annoyed sigh, turned her back to him and dropped to one knee. This Sokka noticed; he pried his eyes away from the book to look down at the top of Toph's head.

"Okay, you've got me," he said, bemused. "I have no idea what you're trying to say."

Toph jerked a thumb over her shoulder. "Climb aboard, captain," she said. "You read, I'll walk, and maybe we'll get back before Katara and Aang do."

Sokka hesitated for a moment, and just when Toph thought he was going to turn her down, she felt his hand on her shoulder. He set his arms around her neck and Toph, with a tiny grunt of effort, straightened up and tucked his knees under her arms. Not only was Sokka about a head taller than Toph, but the weapons he insisted on bringing with him made him that much heavier. She was the greatest Earthbender in the world, capable of lifting boulders over her head and stopping entire trains with a few well-placed jabs. Carrying Sokka was manageable, but it wasn't quite as easy as Earthbending. Her knees buckled under the unfamiliar strain. Toph had to push herself through the first few steps, wobbling like a newborn struggling to get used to its new legs, until finally she found her pace and started off again for the market.

"Wow," said Sokka, clearly amused by the labor in Toph's breath. "I don't think I've ever seen you struggle before!"

"It would help if you didn't weigh as much as a grown hogmonkey!" she said.

"Hey, I am a hogmonkey of solid muscle."

Toph snickered, then choked as her stomach tightened from the effort of carrying her companion. "Don't make me laugh, I'll drop you."

They traveled through the busy streets in silence, save for Sokka's thoughtful humming. Every few minutes she readjusted her grip around Sokka's legs to ensure he didn't slip down her back. Different smells began to waft over their noses as they drew nearer to the food—cured meats, fresh fruit, even the vegetables smelled wonderful this morning. Her watering mouth made Toph realize she had forgotten to eat breakfast.

"Tell me what's for dinner," she said.

Sokka had opened the book in front of her face. His right arm he wrapped around her shoulders to hold him in place, and with his left he propped the book open in his fingers.

"Help me decide," he said. With his cheek pressed against the side of her head, his breath tickled against her ear. "There's dumpling, soba, and wakame stew."

"What the heck is _that?_"

"Wakame is a type of seaweed, so I think it makes a kind of thick soup—"

"Oh, no way is Aang going to eat anything with seaweed!" Toph said.

Sokka laughed. "You're probably right. Do you remember when Katara tried to get him to like sea prunes and hid them in his tofu?"

"And in his oatmeal."

"And in his peach pie—"

Toph had to stop walking as a wave of giggles passed over them both. Her legs shook, Sokka's grip tightened on her shoulders, and she took a deep breath to regain control. At that point, Toph noticed even more heads turning in their direction and realized how absurd they must appear to the unknowing bystander—tiny Toph carrying broad-shouldered Sokka on her back, his book held up right over her face, his weapons clanking together in their holsters with each step. The thought alone made her insides begin to tremble with stifled amusement.

"Stop messing around!" she said, regaining her breath. "Okay, what's the next one?"

She heard the turning of the page and Sokka said, "Ocean cumquat pudding."

"What the heck kind of cookbook is this?"

Sokka paused, and when he spoke again Toph heard in his voice the strain of a smothered laugh. "'Nautical Recipes for the Seafaring Traveler'."

He had said it as she tried to take a step forward, and the snort of laughter that followed Sokka's statement sent her into such a fit that she very nearly flipped him over her shoulder.

"Stop, I can't—" she gasped.

"Yip Yip!" Sokka hollered.

Now he was clinging to her to keep from falling backward, his short beard bristling against her cheek. The giggles that had built up in her belly flooded out like water bursting from a dam. The way they were trudging down the street was funny, the recipe book less so, but as Toph succumbed to her stomach's spasms she knew that her amusement was growing out of her control. It stopped point back to anything specific and became an echo, bouncing back between Toph and Sokka's laughter, growing more and more with each gasp for air.

Toph's knees buckled again, and when she tried to step through it her legs gave out and sent them both hurdling to the ground. As if her failure were not comical enough to nearby citizens, Toph forgetting to soften the fall only added to the scene. They landed just outside the grocery, Toph flat on her face with Sokka crushing her from above, a nearby shopper jumping out of the way to avoid being pulled into the chaos. Too busy clutching their sides to wipe away the tears, Toph and Sokka lay laughing in the dirt until they could not breathe.

xXx

_Two: When Everything Seemed Wonderful_

Neither Toph nor Sokka had foreseen this abrupt turn in their relationship. They may have seen the turn coming, but it always seemed at an intangible distance, hardly a threat to the friends-only status they had established since their first years of camaraderie. What began as a routine banquet in the Fire Palace ballroom—schmoozing, miniature sandwiches, dancing, and reminiscing—quickly became a conscious effort for Toph to not jump Sokka's bones in public.

His behavior was unforgivable tonight. Sokka was attentive, hovering by her side yet not suffocating her, letting her have her way when she insisted (as she always did) that she lead in the formal dances instead of arguing that it was the man's duty to lead, setting his arm around her waist while chatting with nobles so that she would have to do the same in order to maintain an image of strictly platonic affection. Toph thought maybe Sokka was a little tipsy despite the unspoken rule that nobody of "status" risk the group's image (a rule they often made a game of ignoring). It was the only way Toph could explain how her hand had wound up on his knee under the table—and how he not only failed to remove it, but trapped it in place under his own.

Halfway through the intermission between dessert and Zuko's final speech on the importance of international acceptance, Sokka announced to everyone within ear shot that he was no longer feeling well and needed a breath of air outside, at which point Toph agreed that, yes, there must be something going around because she hadn't felt right all evening either. She accompanied him outside to a remote section of the garden, where a wayward conversation about the quality of the strawberry tarts morphed into an agreement that neither of them was likely to marry because any potential spouse would become too jealous at the quality friendship Toph and Sokka shared. And then somehow they were kissing, but Toph couldn't say exactly what lead them to this point, but Toph also knew that this moment was about seven years overdue, and any restraint she may have had was left in the garden as Toph and Sokka went racing down the hallway.

No sooner than Sokka turned the lock on her bedroom door, he slumped against the door in apparent defeat and admitted that while he may have been acting a bit inebriated, he hadn't taken so much as a sip of wine and would never be able to forgive himself if he risked their friendship while she was otherwise incapable of making decisions. It took Toph a moment to process that comment. When his implication finally broke through the barrier of her surprise, it almost bowled her over. Sokka thought that she was _drunk_. Granted, she did feel a bit woozy at the prospect of sleeping with her best friend, but her speculations at _his _tipsiness had been halfhearted at best. First Toph became upset, as if his lack of faith in her choices was an insult to the feelings she had long since stifled (until recently, at least). Once she corrected him with a punch to the shoulder and the affirmation of her sobriety, however, things became much more satisfying.

That was how Toph found herself tucked in one remote corner of her magnificent four-poster bed, lying awake well past midnight to Sokka's dull snoring. What she could hear of the party through the open window had dwindled and died, replaced by the song of summer cicadas and waves on the distant shore. She snuggled deeper into the sheets as a warm breeze rolled across her shoulders. If this moment could only linger a few days longer, then she would be satisfied enough to last the rest of her life. No doubt Sokka would realize his error upon awakening and tell her that he had made a mistake; there was no such thing as "friends first" in his dating history. Sokka fell in love all at once. He liked Nonbenders. Women who had great talent but who also had a feminine poise that Toph lacked. Sokka must know that she would not—could not—change, nor expect him to accommodate her various needs. They were a great match, but only if he was as willing as she… and Toph had long since given up on trying to squeeze anything more from their companionship. Now she had almost undeniably partaken in something that would drive them apart for good.

Toph set her jaw. She would be all right, really. She was strong, independent, capable of moving mountains with the flick of her wrist. These years, these hours, had been a gift that she would in no way regret, but she could move on if she had to. She had never been the type to dwell in one place for too long, anyhow—

Toph froze when Sokka stirred, his snores abruptly cutting short as he awoke with a jolt. This was the moment she had both anticipated and feared, and more than anything she just wanted it to be over. As expected, it took him a second to grasp where he was. In her blurry vision she saw him glance around until his gaze landed on her sleeping back; she was glad that she had turned over on her side, for though she could feign sleep she could not keep her mouth from turning down. Sokka stretched, swung his legs over the side of the bed, rubbed his bad knee. She heard the soft sigh in his voice as he yawned. He stood and, upon finding his discarded pants on the floor, slipped them on.

That was the end, then. He was going to steal back to his bedroom before she awoke to accost him, before anyone could recognize that he had been missing. And come morning, he would pull her aside at breakfast with some well-rehearsed apology, and she would nod and accept and brush off his words like dust off her shoulder. It took a great deal of willpower to keep her breaths even and slow. With the weight of impending loss sitting squarely on her chest, the air had been crushed from her lungs.

Toph counted Sokka's steps away from the bed, the light padding of bare feet on the cool floor. He went leisurely to the window and peered out to the courtyard below, where the servants had finished cleaning up the residual party mess not an hour before. With the full moon rising tonight and the air clear of humidity, he must have seen clear to the ocean. Sokka stayed there for some time, standing evenly on both legs and peering out into the dark, his fingers scarcely loud enough to hear as they tapped along the base of windowsill. Toph couldn't suppose what he was thinking—she was too surprised that he was still here to even fathom other possibilities.

After a few minutes, in which Toph remained almost suspiciously still with the blankets clutched up against her chest, Sokka left the window. He went to the water pitcher at his bedside, poured one glass, and took a drink. Then the joints of the old bed creaked as he climbed back under the sheets. Toph drew her breath steady and slow, ready to faint and unwilling to believe. Sokka leaned across the gap and kissed the bare curve of her shoulder, curled against the contour of her frame, and went back to sleep.

Toph waited until his snores returned to mop the wetness out of her eyes.

xXx

_Three: When Everything Seemed Terrible_

Toph had been sipping her morning tea and listening to Sokka's long-winded rant about the ineffectiveness of the Council of Five when she felt a familiar beat in the ground. The footsteps had been moving so fast that she almost mistook them for a stranger's—and whereas she could usually spot them a mile away, they was almost all the way up the front walk before she noticed.

Something was wrong. Sokka couldn't know, as Toph did, by the wayward running pattern and harsh breath, but he did notice when Toph set her teacup down hard enough to slop half its contents across the table.

"So I told him if he really wanted to have the map, he would have to bend over and kiss my—" Sokka said, breaking away from his thought at the site of her widening eyes. "Is something wrong?"

Toph didn't have time to answer before the front door opened with such a clamor that Sokka nearly toppled out of his seat. He spun around just in time to see their six-year-old daughter appear in the doorway.

"What the—Oma!"

Sokka sprang up and, crossing the room, dropped to one knee in front of the child. Oma was bawling so hard that she could not catch her breath. The snot flowing freely from her nose was seeping into her shirt, one of her braids had come loose and hung in a tangled mess. Even more alarming than this sight was not only the fact that she had run all the way from school, but the sheer amount of blood dripping from the right side of her face. Sokka had to pry Oma's writing hands away from the wound to get a good look at it. Toph felt her husband's grimace from across the room.

"What happened, Oma?" he asked in his best effort at calm. When the question only made Oma's sobs louder, he backed away and instead went straight to the cupboard under the stove. "It's a pretty deep cut. I could bandage it, but Katara might be able to keep it from scarring," he said.

At the sound of Sokka's evaluation, Toph realized that she was still seated and leapt to attention. Her daughter ran to her at once. She threw her arms around Toph's legs and continued her screeching. By the time Toph had calmed her down enough to illicit responses that weren't garbled beyond comprehension, Sokka had deposited a hospital's worth of sterile bandages and gauze on the table. Still on the brink of hyperventilating, Oma explained that she had been playing when a boy in her class had pushed her hard enough to knock her right off her feet and cut her face on a rock. Then Toph announced that she was going to the school to crack some skulls. In turn Sokka shook his head and said that he would stop by Aang and Katara's on the way to the school.

"I'll be back, just hang in there," he said, and his heavy footfalls retreated out the door. Toph wasn't sure to whom he had directed that last comment—to Oma, who had resumed her meltdown, or to Toph, who wanted nothing more than to join her.

Much as she hated to admit it, Sokka was far more suited for the job of wheedling an explanation from the teachers. At the very least, he was less likely than his stubborn wife to tear the building down with his bare hands. Toph's pulse was jumping in her neck, shaking down to the floor panels with enough force that Oma noticed. The little Earthbender turned her head back to stare inquisitively at her mother, and this gesture forces a breath into Toph's lungs.

"I need you to listen to me, Oma," said Toph, kneeling down. She plucked up a bit of gauze, gently took Oma's hand away from the gash, and pressed the gauze against her cheek. Toph wiped the child's nose with the hem of her tunic and swallowed back her own anxiety. "I know they say you're not supposed to Earthbend in school, but sometimes we have to break the rules. If someone ever tries to hurt you again, you have me and daddy's permission to protect yourself. Do you understand? Blast him to the moon if you have to."

Toph couldn't read the pause that followed before Oma eventually answered, "Yes, momma."

"Good. I love you very much, Oma. Everything will be all right, I promise."

Katara arrived shortly thereafter to find them in the living room, Oma seated on Toph's cross-legged lap with a wreath of red-tinged gauze around them. The little gasp she couldn't contain affirmed Toph's fears. It was the same one she had heard from Katara on only a few occasions… The first time she examined Aang's lightning wound. When she saw how badly Sokka had mutilated his leg in the fall from the airship. After an ambush left Toph with a laceration from her hip to her underarm. All the same. And now Oma had earned the gasp, too.

Toph couldn't stay here, where Oma would have to witness the forthcoming breakdown. She passed her daughter off to Katara and excused herself to the backyard, where she sat down and tore fistfuls of grass out of the ground like a twelve year old with a tantrum. When that failed to soothe her, she paced in a big circle until Sokka found her there some time later.

"Katara says she'll be fine as long as we keep it covered," he announced. "There'll be a scar, but that's not so bad when you think about how close she came to losing an eye."

Toph was not placated by this apparently 'good' news. She whipped around to face her husband, shaking with the effort of keeping calm. She had never felt so angry and helpless on behalf of someone else. The urge to break something, to flatten a building or blow up a mountain, was itching in her bones so badly that she could taste it.

"What kind of damn world is this?" she shouted, throwing her arms wide.

Sokka recoiled at the gesture before moving cautiously forward, as one might approach a wounded animal. "What?" he said, perplexed.

"So this was what we get for saving every person in this big stupid city! We spend our childhoods making the world safe for these people, and how do they thank us? By bullying our kid."

"Toph, it's not exactly what you might—"

"She's only six, Sokka! And look what's happened already!"

She hadn't noticed until now that her hands had balled into fists, that tears were burning a trail down the sides of her face, dripping off the end of her nose, splashing down her front. Toph faltered, and Sokka took this opportunity to step within her punching range. He took her wrists and eased her arms, which hung in a half-formed Earthbending stance, down to her sides.

"Listen, I talked to the teacher who was outside with them during recess hour," he began in a low, soft voice, pausing only to wipe the wetness from her face with his thumbs and kiss the places where the tears had fallen. "I think you might feel a little better once you hear what he had to say."

When Toph merely stood there, arms limp and jaw tight, Sokka pressed forward with his report. "Apparently Oma and this boy—Jian was his name, I think—got into an argument about whose parents could beat up whose. Which is nonsense, obviously, because we would totally win that fight. But anyhow, Oma said she didn't need her parents to fight because she could do it herself. And then she challenged him to an Agni Kai."

Toph was so taken aback by this turnaround that she almost laughed. "She _what?_"

"Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. So they started fist fighting, and Jian did actually push her into a rock, which explains everything except why Oma didn't tell us about the fight. But here's the thing: after he pushed her, she Earthbended a cage around him and put him up about fifty feet in the air. They were still getting him down when I got there."

"So what?" Toph sniffed. Sometime during his explanation, she had let Sokka enfold her in a hug.

"So, you can't Earthbend in an Agni Kai!" Sokka said in exasperation, his chin bobbing against the top of her head. "I'll bet you anything she didn't want us to know she'd broken the rules of engagement."

Wiping her eyes on the collar of Sokka's shirt, Toph chuckled lightly and shook her head.

"Are you sure she'll be all right?" she said.

"Sure. She's got you for a mother."

"Well," said Toph as they turned back to the house together, an arm around each other's waist, "Toph _does_ rhyme with tough, after all."

"That it does, that it does."

xXx

_(And One Time She Didn't.)_

Oma found her sitting under the big tree out back with her chin propped up on her hands. In any other situation, Toph would have chided her for not using her sight to locate her sooner. But then, Toph weighed less and less every day—to the imperceptive Earthbender, she may have been mistaken for a rather large rock. Oma seemed lighter on her feet today, too, an odd thought given the circumstances until Toph realized that Oma had set aside her armor. Whenever the Chief of Metalbending Police walked, it was with the confident clink of metal on metal. But not today.

"Come on, Ma."

Despite the tenderness in Oma's voice, Toph turned away from her daughter. "Go on by yourself. I'm not coming," she said.

Apparently this objection was not surprising, for Oma hesitated only moment before joining her mother on the warm stretch of grass. The summer's day was as perfect as one could hope for a funeral procession. Slivers of sunlight dotted through the protection of the shady tree, casting warmth upon her skin and graying brow. The sort of morning that Toph and Sokka used to fill with meandering strolls and cups of cooling tea, he limping along beside her with his cane while she breathed easy in the tepid air.

But no more. And if Toph was going to preserve those perfect moments, to make them last until the very end, then she couldn't taint them with the misery of modern customs. Whoever decided that there should be a party to celebrate death had clearly never loved with every ounce of their energy—by the time she had said her last goodbye, Toph had none left for extra ceremony. She was too sad to make a show out of mourning.

Oma was not convinced, however. She set a hand on her mother's shoulder and gave it a gentle shake.

"Come on, there'll be food," she said.

"I'm not hungry," said Toph.

"Dad would have wanted you to be there."

"No, he wouldn't."

Oma paused, searching for the proper comeback. "Then tell everyone yourself... it's not like anybody's asking you to make a speech," Oma said, in an effort at a gentle nudge that was in no way her style, "though you could if you wanted. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever heard the story of how you two fell in love. This might be a nice time to, you know, memorialize it."

Toph shivered in the warm breeze that passed over them. She tucked her legs in closer to her chest, letting her chin fall upon the bridge of her knees.

"You never heard about it because it didn't happen," Toph said. "We never fell in love. We just realized the love we already had was enough to make it."

For this, Oma could muster no suitable response. The women sat adjacent in silence, Oma digging a slow circle in the dirt with the heel of one palm, until eventually one of them had to budge.

"Okay," said Oma in a hushed tone, "I won't make you come. But you know where to find us if you change your mind."

Then she departed, and Toph knew that Oma was waiting to wipe her eyes until she had turned the corner. Toph had no such predicament—after years of practice, she had finally run out of tears.

With his name ready on her lips, Toph sprawled out beneath the summer tree and waited for Sokka to call her home.

xXx

_Fin._

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Thanks for reading! Feedback is, as always, appreciated. :D See you tomorrow!


	21. Three And One Times Sokka Was Naked

A/n: This... was fun to write. I think the title says it all.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Happy Tokka Week!

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_Three Times Sokka Was Naked (And One Time He Wasn't)_

_One _

Sokka's favorite part about visiting the Fire Nation was the bath. The food was good, too, but over the years (much to his father's chagrin) he had perfected his own recipes for fire flakes, fire meat rub, and a fiery goes-on-everything fire sauce. The people were fine too, though he could survive if their relationship were a long distance one—at tonight's banquet, for instance, he had to be on his best behavior lest Fire Lady Mai (with whom he usually had a nice sarcastic back-and-forth) skin him and hand his extremities out as party favors.

No, the best part about the Fire Nation was most definitely the giant marble tubs in the Palace bathrooms. Everyone loved them—_everyone_, even Toph, who usually had to be flanked by every handmaid available before she could be coaxed into the bath. The Fire Nation had always been two steps ahead of the world in the industrial growth department, and somehow since the war they had perfected the bathing experience. The steam-powered city piped in water hot enough to cook a saber-toothed moose-lion cub. The tub was laid into the ground, deep but not too deep, with textured steps so that the lucky user would not slip and crack his head open. While water poured from the fine-wrought bronze tap, one could add any number of soaps, scrubs, and bubbles that were housed in a well-stocked basket nearby.

Everyone in the group had a different reason to deny how much they enjoyed the bath. Aang didn't like to waste water. Katara didn't like bathing in such an open space—the room felt too exposed, she said, even after the looking glasses fogged and the candle burned down to a perfumed lull (which was funny to Sokka, as they had spent a year bathing outdoors). Toph simply didn't like to remove her healthy coating of earth. But Sokka had no such complaints. For the warrior who spent his time either in a straight-backed chair with straight-backed generals or training in the open courtyard with Toph and whoever else cared to join them, scalding-hot water was the only available remedy for aching muscles and frazzled nerves.

He twisted the faucet knob and tipped his head back against the lip of the tub. This was paradise at the end of the day. The bruise that sparring with Zuko had put on his leg throbbed in the heat, but the burn was one of relief. He scrubbed the dirt off of his hands and feet, then dunked his head and washed the dried sweat away from his face. Mai and Zuko's bath must be even grander than this one, though he couldn't imagine how it might possibly improve. This one could easily fit two, so maybe if they had one big enough to fit a whole gaggle of—wait, no, Zuko would never be okay with that plan. Maybe Mai. He made a mental note to ask her at tonight's party exactly how cozy their private bathing quarters could be—

At the sound of the door sliding open, Sokka jolted so fast that the soap he had been rubbing into his scalp ran promptly into his face.

"Ah!" he squawked, rubbing his burning eyes. A few seconds of frantic rinsing later, he blinked and saw that the intruder was already sliding the door shut behind her. "_Toph!_"

Toph did not seem surprised by his reaction, nor did she look at all uncomfortable in the white towel wrapped tight around her torso. Evidently Katara had persuaded the Earthbender to join them at the end of war anniversary banquet, because Toph was clearly in the pre-bathing stage.

"Hey Sokka."

"What're you doing here?" he cried, dumbstruck by the intrusion.

For one wild moment as she stepped forward, Sokka expected her to toss her towel and jump right into the steamy water with him. She offered a nonchalant wave before making a beeline for the wooden cabinet in the far corner of the room. An unnecessary flush passed down Sokka's neck.

"I need one of your towels, the ones in my bathroom are all itchy," she said, pulling the cabinet open and standing on tiptoe to reach one of the aforementioned towels.

"But… you're _wearing_ one."

"The red ones are softer and we're out of those."

Sokka watched as she slid behind the vertical folds of the changing screen, and wondered how someone who preferred to sleep on the dirt floor outside could possibly have an issue with the condition of the royal palace's fluffy towels. There was a rustle of fabric as she tossed hers into a heap across the room. When she re-emerged, the only difference was the cotton weave's wine red color.

"You could have at least knocked," Sokka said blearily.

"What's the point? I already knew you weren't doing anything knockworthy," Toph said.

Speechless save for the surprised choking noise emitting from his open mouth, Sokka eyed her as she retreated to the door, the towel flapping just above her knees. An echo bounced back from the slap of her bare feet on the marble. It was only once he realized he was staring that Sokka came back to life.

"Wait, hold up a second!" he said.

Toph slowed and ceased with one hand outreached for the door, turned, and puffed her straggled hair out of her face. "What?" she said, with a hint of force behind her indifferent expression.

"You never barged in on me before," he said, only stumbling upon this epiphany as he said it. "Not in all these years!"

"I never needed a towel before."

"Yeah, well… you scared the monkeyfeathers out of me."

Toph sighed and shook her head as if his concern were the least sensible reaction he could have had to her invasion of his privacy. "Why is this even an issue? I'm _blind_, genius."

"It's the principle of the thing!"

"You're overreacting," she snapped. "I'm not exactly in the robe of modesty here, and _you_ can see. If I don't care, then you shouldn't either."

Sokka crossed his arms in a uselessly pointed gesture. "All I'm saying is you can't just walk in on a guy when he's naked! It's… uncomfortable."

"All right, whatever you say," said Toph. She pushed the door open, stepped out, and offered him a sweet smile before she closed it again. "Besides, Sokka, you're always naked to me."

Her footsteps faded. Sokka dunked his head.

xXx

_Two._

Sokka sat there for a long time, no longer enjoying the simmer of scented bubbles and soothing warmth, and tried to extract some meaning from what had just happened. He could not imagine why she would choose now as a suitable time for bursting in on him, after years of their unspoken accommodation of each other's privacy. Even more puzzling, he could not figure out why it bothered him so much. She was blind, as she had so astutely reminded him. And what did it matter anyway, the presence of a few strips of cloth? She could see right through them. Toph and Sokka once had a long conversation about the fringe effects of her "sight" (they had even made private jokes about it at the expense of several guards, a handful of politicians, and Long Feng), and though it was certainly an awkward premise, he had never given much thought to it as long as he was actually wearing clothes.

Comprehension crept over him like a cloud over a perfect summer sky. If Katara ever needed anything from him while he was bathing or dressing, she knocked and waited for his permission to enter—and when she did enter, she always held a hand up to screen her vision. With Aang he didn't really care either way, but Aang was too polite (and too patient) for his own good and only ever barged in when he absolutely couldn't wait. The problem, then, could not possibly be that Toph had walked in when he was naked, because it happened to him all the time to no consequence. It wasn't even that Toph hadn't knocked. The problem was that it was _Toph_ who had walked in on him with the air of one casually shopping for groceries. The only person in his life who had ever been so relaxed in this manner had been, well, Suki.

Unsure of how to confront this particular turn in his thoughts, he rinsed off the last of the soap, drained the tub, and climbed out. When he opened the cabinet, the sight of an empty shelf made his shoulders drop. Slowly, he turned to face the fluffy white heap on the floor.

Sokka picked up her abandoned towel, gingerly, as if Toph's concern had convinced him that it had to be made of barbed wire. It was just as soft as all the others, some silky cotton stitching the he was sure cost a fortune. Skeptical, he dried himself off and wrapped the towel around his waist before venturing out into the bedroom that he shared with Aang.

Aang was out, but Katara was standing at the foot of his bed, laying out a fresh tunic and windpants. Unlike the rest of her family, she was donned in a gown and ready for the celebratory dinner in the ballroom. Whereas Toph concealed how much she actually enjoyed surprising people via dressing up, Katara reveled in it. She was happy to go, and something about the fast-paced rush heightened her spirits like it had during their traveling days. Then there was the separate benefit of being the Avatar's fiancé at these sorts of things; though she would deny that it made any difference, Sokka kept catching her fiddling with her engagement necklace and smiling like a fourteen-year-old with a crush.

"Oh good, you're out!" she said cheerfully. "I was starting to think you'd drowned in there. The laundry's done."

"I hope that means they've fixed the towel shortage," he said.

Katara straightened up from where she had been arranging and re-arranging Aang's clothes and turned to appraise Sokka. That silly little grin had been revisiting her face, but her expression faltered slightly when she caught sight of her slump-shouldered brother.

"What towel shortage? Our linen closet has plenty," she said, in reference to the bathroom that she shared with Toph. "Especially the red ones—they're so soft!" She caught the dawning comprehension as it flickered over Sokka's face. "What is it, Sokka?"

He recovered himself, shook his head, and answered, "Nothing, just a little overworked. I hope they're serving something good tonight."

"If you're talking about drinks, then you're out of luck," she said, crossing her arms. Her smile morphed into warning disapproval. "After last year's disaster, Mai decided the party would be better off without an open bar. And just so you know, they'll be checking _both_ you and Toph for weapons this time, so don't try any funny business."

"All right, all right," he said.

Last year's party had almost ended in total calamity when Toph and Sokka started a bar fight that began with a raucous song about gift shop pirates and ended when Sokka went after a particularly rude noble with a machete procured from under Toph's dress. Thinking back on the event, Sokka recalled that he and Toph had had a… a _thing_, even then. It was more obvious under the influence of fancy drinks garnished with little pink umbrellas, but the tone of, well, _intense camaraderie_ had followed them around ever since. But anyway, as long as there wasn't going to be any open bar, Katara needn't worry about his lightweight tendencies for trouble. When he told her as much, she rolled her eyes and told him to get ready. She turned back to Aang's outfit, flattened out the collar with her palm, and left with the return of her smirk.

Sokka didn't dress right away. He dug the aforementioned machete out of his bag and shaved with it as he did every day (they had some nice razors here, but he was for some reason more likely to knick his chin with them than with his cumbersome weapons). He dragged a comb through his sopping hair and put it into a wolf's tail. Aang stopped in to get changed, at which point they chatted about whether or not there would be an even vegetarian-to-carnivore menu, and only once Aang disappeared once more did Sokka realize he was still in his towel.

That was when Toph appeared for the second time that night. And like the previous occurrence, she did not knock.

His very first thought was that whoever had wrestled Toph into that dress had done a magnificent job. His second thought was more of a realization that his hand was on the knot at his waist. And finally, his third thought was more a strange combination of boldness and panic that raced into his hands before he had the chance to stop it. With a flourish, the towel fell and pooled in a bundle between them.

Toph, whose mouth had been open before Sokka had reached for the towel, paused before saying in a nonplussed tone, "Cold in here, isn't it?"

"Don't tell me you think this isn't weird," he said.

"Yeah, nothing's weirder than a man getting dressed in his own bedroom."

Then, as if to prove her nonchalance, she stepped over the towel to pass him something that he had not realized was even in her hand. It was a shiny silver flask, topped with a miniature flame. "I ran off to the kitchen while Katara wasn't looking," she said.

He reached out, dumbstruck, and accepted her gift without speaking. The brush of her fingers would have made him jump were he not already frozen in place.

"Hide it in your shirt and it'll get past the weapons check," she said, offering him a grin that he could not bring himself to return.

Then, just as Toph had done almost no time ago, she turned on her heel and left him naked and alone, her long braid swaying out of the way barely in time to escape the closing door. His first thought was that whoever fastened the hundred or so buttons lining down the back of Toph's dress most definitely deserved a raise. His second thought was one of profound confusion. His third was resolve.

xXx

_Three._

The morning that followed brought on a headache that had little to do with the banquet. Out of respect for the hosts (and fear of what releasing his inhibitions might bring), Sokka hadn't let the fine silver flask creep out of his breast pocket. If Toph had brought her own, she didn't let him catch her drinking from it. Aside from one suspicious giggle fit they had while interrogating Mai about her bathroom's capacity, nobody had reason to suspect that Toph and Sokka had smuggled in their own remedy for rigid parties.

Neither of them had mentioned the events prior to the gathering, despite spending the entire evening side by side. It was a side effect of being the "other" party to Aang and Katara, who were somehow a single entity even when entertaining guests on opposite ends of the room. At dinner, Sokka and Toph sat together beside the vacant seats of Aang and Katara (who hardly had time to speak to each other, much less eat). They meandered around the room, sampling teas and desserts.

Afterward Sokka and Toph somehow convinced one another that, due to the party's celebration of interracial togetherness, they ought to dance at least a little bit. Sokka thought that this was probably a bad idea, given that the very suggestion of holding Toph even remotely close now made his brain swish around in his head, but he nevertheless followed her out to the center of the floor. His frantic heartbeat he attributed out loud to the extreme amounts of caffeine in the tea, as a countermeasure against Toph's ability to read his life signs from a mile away—she'd told him once that she could pick his, specifically his, out of a crowd. He had gotten used to the idea of Toph being so in tune with him at all times. Last night, as she led him through the movements of a complicated dance, he did not think her talent very convenient. Actually, the only thing more annoying was that she seemed neither convinced of his caffeine excuse nor concerned that he would need one.

The party was the source of his throbbing temples. His current anxiety, nailed further into his head and heart with every footfall toward Toph's room, was from his newfound bravado. His legs wanted to stop outside the bedroom, but the knowledge that she would sense his hesitation gave him the strength to open the door and slip inside.

Toph was sitting alone on the small cushioned couch, a steaming mug weighing in the cup of her hands. He would have thought her solitude somewhat strange, could he not hear the music wafting in through the open window. So the parade had begun. He was counting on Aang and Katara and Mai and Zuko and everyone else to be _there_ instead of _here_.

"Morning, Toph," Sokka greeted her, in an effort at maximum aloofness.

"Hey Snoozles," she said. "How's your head?"

"Fine. How's the show?" he asked, in reference to the faint sound of drums and horns from outside. The parade was too loud for Toph to care for up close, but she enjoyed music and listened from afar every year.

"Pretty good, actually. Better than last year."

Sokka eased the door shut behind him. "Mind if I join you?"

When Toph waved a hand at the empty spot next to her, Sokka nodded and began to stroll across the short space between them. He had to tug at his heavy limbs to get them going, resulting in an exaggerated slowness that did not visibly disturb the Earthbender, if she even noticed. Sokka stopped again once he reached the short table standing between he and Toph, upon which sat the kettle of tea, a second cup, and a bowl of beef jerky strips. It was almost as if she had been expecting him.

Somehow he had enough feeling in his fingers to find the knot at his waist and unfasten it. Sokka shrugged out of his tunic, folded it in half, and dropped it on the floor. He kept his eyes trained on Toph, who paid him no heed as he unfastened his boots and pulled them off one by one. With a few quick gestures Sokka yanked the string belt of his pants out of its bow knot, loosened the waist, and dropped his pants.

Toph took a sip of tea.

"A little warm?" she asked sweetly.

"Nope," said Sokka in return, finding it easy now that the verbal barrier was broken to pull the cloth of his underpants down as well. He stepped out of the ring of clothing around his feet. "I just thought, since it apparently makes no difference to you, what's the point of wearing clothes at all?"

Toph smirked into her teacup. "Your logic is flawless as usual, Sokka."

"I know, right?" As he made his way around the table, he stretched his arms up over his head and yawned. "I mean, they're just so uncomfortable, you know? And nobody should have to feel uncomfortable."

Toph snorted at his comment, unmoved by the casualness with which Sokka deposited himself next to her on the seat and propped his feet up on the table. She leaned forward, picked up the second teacup by its brim, and passed it to Sokka, who in turn held it as far from his naked lap as possible.

"If you want to experience 'uncomfortable', you should try wearing chest wrappings sometime," Toph said.

"Oddly enough, I've actually done that before."

"Really?"

" Long story."

"Ah. Well, no worries," Toph reached over and patted him lightly on the thigh. Sokka winced as a stream of hot tea dribbled down his arm. "I'm sure I'll hear it sometime."

Sokka watched, open-mouthed, as she grabbed the bowl off the table and offered it to him with a smile. "_Jerky?_"

Even if he had had an hour to think up a response, Sokka would have been just as speechless as he was in the split second before he heard the squeak of the door. But he didn't have time to find his words, just as he didn't have time to process his visceral response to the sound of an unexpected visitor—the flush of red streaming to his face, his hand letting go of the teacup in order to grab the bowl of beef jerky and place it squarely over his lap. How everyone minus Toph jumped at the sound of the shattering porcelain, followed by Katara's terrified shriek as she looked up to find her stark naked brother sitting adjacent to Toph Bei Fong. Aang's eyebrows almost shot clear off of his forehead.

There was no way Toph hadn't felt Aang and Katara arrive on this floor—or heard them coming down the hall, at the very least. The two intruders stared at the other pair, one of whom stared right back with the same astonishment painted across his face. Toph took a particularly loud sip of tea.

After about ten seconds of being frozen with shock, Katara found her voice. "What the—_why are you naked?_"

Toph turned her blind eyes to Sokka for the first time and said in apparent surprise, "You're naked?"

Sokka's jaw dropped. As Aang hid his amused blush behind his hand and Katara launched into a tirade about basic decency ("What if one of the maids had walked in on you? What would they have thought?"), it was all Sokka could do to whisper "traitor".

xXx

_(And one time he wasn't.)_

Sokka stepped into the steamy bathroom and closed the door behind him. The light sound of trickling water stopped the moment he appeared, but no voice called out in sharp protest. He could not see Toph through the blindfold fastened over his eyes, but he imagined that she went as still as he had the first time she barged in on him.

"Hey Toph."

No answer. Sokka threw his arms out in front of him and began shuffling across the marble floor, cutting through the foggy air with dramatic gestures to keep from smacking into the wall.

"I just need a towel," he said. "Unlike in your case, our bath actually doesn't have any, much less extra fluffy ones."

"You're wearing a blindfold."

"Yes, I am. Now you understand how I felt!"

Toph's sigh reached his ears next. But to his immense surprise, she didn't sound bored. The ring at the edge of her voice when she replied "Sure, whatever you say" was definitely disappointment. Sokka stopped halfway between the towel cabinet and the door, turned in the general direction of the tub where Toph sat up to her neck in bubbles, and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Okay, I don't get it," he said. "At first I thought I was dealing with one issue, but now I'm pretty sure there's actually something else we're getting at."

"It's a good thing you're so smart," said Toph.

Sokka sighed. "Toph, are we—? You know…" He gestured vaguely at the space between them. "Do we really have a thing, or have I just been making it all up in my head?"

There was a pause. Sokka picked at a loose thread in the sleeve of his tunic, avoiding eye contact despite Toph's blindness and the strip of fabric tied on his face.

"Could you have waited to ask me about this, or was me being naked in the bathtub part of your plan the whole time?" Toph deadpanned, but there was a hint of a smile in her voice.

"So there is a thing, then!" said Sokka, so loudly that his voice reverberated off of the walls and back into his ears. "You could have been a little more subtle."

"Come here."

"What?"

"I don't believe that you're actually wearing a blindfold."

Though Sokka hesitated at the prospect of taking one step closer to the woman to whom had had just confessed his feelings (however roundabout the confession), eventually he obeyed. Still shuffle-walking, he felt his way over to the edge of the grand tub, bent over with his fingers wrapped around the cool brim, and waited. He heard the splash of water before her wet hand found his face and touched the blindfold he'd fashioned out of his belt. Her fingers sought his eyes, roamed over his ears, followed the line back to the knot beneath his wolf's tail. After a moment, she clicked her tongue in approval. Her hand moved to his upper arm and squeezed.

"I have been bouncing 'subtle' off of your thick skull for months," Toph said. "But that's okay. I actually prefer it like this."

With one almighty jerk, Toph pulled him right off his feet. Sokka yelped in surprise, throwing his limbs out in a valiant attempt at regaining balance, but his effort did no good. He plunged, fully clothed and blind, into the scorching hot water. A pair of hands grabbed the thrashing warrior and yanked him to the surface. Sokka spluttered and gasped as he found the air, stunned by Toph's audacity and the realization of what she had just done.

"You see," said Toph, grabbing the tied ends of the blindfold in one hand and tugging it loose, "subtle isn't really my style."

The blindfold landed in a wet heap across the room. The rest of Sokka's attire promptly followed.

xXx

_Fin._

* * *

A/n: Thanks for reading! Feedback is always appreciated! :D See you tomorrow!


	22. La Mer

A/n: This is my last piece for Tokka Week, unless I manage to write something on the train back home today! Though let's be real, I will probably just sleep the whole time.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Happy Tokka Week!

* * *

_La Mer_

Toph knew that something might happen. Katara had spent the last few days trying to reason with the change in Sokka, that subtle shift in his mood perceived only by those closest to him. To others, his hesitation might be symptomatic of their long journey to the outermost fringes of the Earth Kingdom, a regular fatigue. His family, however, could tell that he was not tired, but distracted—maybe via overload from the diligent preparing he had done to get them here, maybe stress acquired from leaning over his maps to translate Aang's strategies into a tangible plan.

But Toph knew that Sokka was terrified. Since the moment they stepped off of Appa and onto this stretch of land, his veins had been jumping in his skin. She saw with her gifted sight what the others could not—his tempered breath, hands quivering in his pockets. He lingered a little closer to her than usual at all times, keeping her just within arm's reach in case one of them should fall.

Toph had seen it before, but only once, and only here. At the place where they almost died together five years ago.

This tiny battle-site-gone-village was one of the most famous places in the world, toured by visitors from every nation during the summer months. Sokka and Toph avoided it like the rooster-cow flu. Whenever duty called for the Avatar to attend a gathering or ceremony there, Toph and Sokka stayed behind to take care of the house—which was code for "lay around and play on the modified Pai Sho board Sokka had carved to suit the blind Earthbender and himself". Before Suki moved back to Kyoshi Island for good, she would join them in traveling back and forth to newly-found Republic City, sometimes helping them train Toph's Metalbending students. In the years that followed, Toph and Sokka took on this venture alone.

Apparently their absence at the historical site had been noticed, however. Whereas the appearance of the duo complementary to Aang and Katara was always assumed rather than spoken (and thus quite easy to ignore), this year Toph and Sokka's names had been explicitly detailed on the invitation. Toph had known it would only be a matter of time before they had to return, even if Sokka had silently convinced himself that he would never go again. She also knew that, for all of her talent in repressing bothersome emotions, there would be repercussions. The nightmares of fire and falling to her death, the crack of Sokka's bone against the metal airship, all returned in grand detail.

Well before sunrise on the third day, Toph awoke in the cottage they were calling home for their stay. Out of habit, she stuck out a hand and placed it palm-down against the floor. The life signs of her family thrummed up from the ground to meet her. Aang and Katara were snuggled up together in their room, chests rising and falling in sleep. Appa and Momo were outside in the covered shed. Sokka… she paused in an effort to place him upon realizing that his sleeping mat lay barren… standing alone at the brim of the shore. Toph scrambled up from her bed and slipped soundlessly outside.

The sea was calm tonight. The waves did not roar and crash but lulled a lazy rhythm into the sand. Sokka was up to his chest by the time she reached him, his tunic and boots abandoned in a pile. Though summer was drawing nearer, the bitter-cold water still chased her away from the edge.

"Sokka!"

He heard her voice but did not turn. For a moment Sokka thought that the sound was of his mind's own creation. It was strange that Toph should appear just now, just as he was thinking of her; he had been startled from sleep by a vivid nightmare of the comet's arrival, as if being in such close contact to the place for the first time since the end of the war had sparked in him the terror he had felt then. And so he had waded into the inky water, gasping and choking, to find some serenity. There was Toph's weight on his arm, dangling over death below, his own strength shocking to the both of them. His shoulders cramped with the strain of it, his leg groaning even now, even at peace. His arms dangled by his sides, drifted back and forth with the cycle's push and pull. The cold stung him into an ebbing numbness. Sokka waded in sodden shorts before the full moon, open to her judgment and begging for advice.

Saving Toph's life had been the most important thing to him five summers ago near this very spot. What purpose was dearest to him now? Sokka stood motionless, letting the swells break across his shoulders. Beads of water flew through the air like shards of broken glass in the moonlight.

Back on solid shore, Toph called his name again. Sokka turned to find her alone and blank-faced. She waited with the tips of her toes at the low tide line, stepping back every time the water's hem tried to reach her. Tonight, a distinct chill rolled in off the ocean breeze.

"What're you doing?" she shouted.

"I'm okay," he said in reply.

"You're not gonna be okay once you get sick and _I _have to sit through tomorrow's meeting without you."

Toph's jaw was set in a hard line, but her eyes held something else. Not wholly concern, though concern was there too. The moonlight pressed up against Sokka's back, urging him forward with a wave's turn. He had asked Her for guidance and She had answered with enthusiasm. If years of back-and-forth banter and unconditional camaraderie were never going to be enough, then now was time to ask for more.

Sokka paused, blinked the seawater out of his eyes, and said, "Come out here with me."

Toph could generally trust him around the water, enough for her to get in up to her knees if he stuck close by. He'd given up on teaching her to swim after their last effort resulted in a black eye, when Toph thought she was drowning and punched him in the face while trying to save herself. The suggestion that she would put even a _toe_ into this giant ice pond in the dark with no Waterbenders to save them from the inevitable giant tidal wave… Toph actually laughed.

"Not happening, Snoozles! Just get back here so I can go to sleep."

"I mean it, Toph. You'll feel better," said Sokka.

"I feel fine, thank—" She broke off upon realizing that Sokka had started trudging back to the shore. Even with her sandy vision, she could tell he was making a beeline for her and not for his pile of clothing. Toph took a few steps back to equal the distance he had progressed, like she couldn't simply blast him to the moon if he tried to drag her in.

Sokka extended an arm, palm open as if she could grasp it from such a distance. Her chance to take him or leave him, definitively, had finally come. It had only cost him five years to figure it out. "Just trust me."

Toph wanted to tell him that she _did_ trust him, more than she had ever trusted anyone in her life, but water was water and she was going to sink straight to the bottom if she somehow got in over her head. Yet somehow, without granting her legs formal permission, she took a step forward. And another. The water was so cold that she almost drew back from the shock of it, but Toph nevertheless shuffled in to her knees before the panic attack could set in. Sokka waited until she was up to her hips to rescue her from her internal struggle, meeting her halfway and taking her hand. When he tugged, she resisted just an inch before she gave way and let him pull her deeper. She tensed as the cold seeped into her clothes, anticipating that he might drag her out even farther. Instead, Toph was equally startled when he settled down in front of her and grasped both her hands in his. He rocked from side to side with each wave, riding it instead of fighting it, bringing Toph along with him in the cycle.

After a pause, he asked, "You okay?"

"_You're_ the one who wandered out for a midnight dip," said Toph, breathlessly. "Are _you _all right?"

"Yeah. This place, though…"

"I know. I feel it too."

The motion that followed was of neither Toph nor Sokka's creation, but a combination of tiny gestures adding up into one big step. Her knees bent and he followed, strung along by her tight grasp on his hands. Sokka inched forward, Toph sought his shoulders. And what was perhaps originally intended to be a hug morphed into an arrangement that neither of them could rightly explain.

They had seen Aang and Katara do this before. Sometimes when the day was lazy and the sun hot, the two of them headed down to the sea for Waterbending practice and wound up here instead. Aang would crouch down in the water, Katara sitting herself lightly on his knees, locking her ankles together behind him and her arms around his neck. They could stay there for as long as they could spare, weightless and close, talking just out of her earshot in smiling whispers. It had always looked like a cozy place to Toph. As it so happened, she was right.

There wasn't much to it but a profound intimacy. She had clung to Sokka's waist before, whether on Appa or when walking over wooden surfaces, but the weight of _his_ hands on _her_ hips—fingers laced together at the small of her back, pressing just enough to keep her from floating into the current—was so foreign that she was not quite sure how to deal with it. So instead of staring blindly down at the gap between them while he studied her expression, Toph tightened her grip, scooted closer, and set her chin on his shoulder. She gave way to her fear of drowning and let Sokka anchor them both, just as he had when she was swinging free from the airship and he refused to let her go.

For some time they said nothing at all. Toph, half of whose brain had begun to dance the chamelephant strut, bit back the obvious question. Of course, now that they were here, they would have to address this interesting turn at some point, preferably before things became awkward. But the time was not now. They drifted in place.

Sokka cleared his throat with a little cough that ran all the way up Toph's chest. "Did I ever tell you," he began, "that I used to hate the ocean?"

"Sokka—" he tensed at the sound of his name. Toph shifted her hands to his shoulders in preparation to pull back, but reconsidered and wrapped her arms around his midsection instead. She shivered as a larger wave lapped up against the nape of her neck. "You can't _hate_ the ocean. You're Water Tribe!"

"Well I did. For a very long time."

"How come?"

"Because Katara was a Bender and I wasn't." When Toph offered no reply, Sokka sighed and continued on. "I'm still a little fuzzy on how all that stuff works, but I'm pretty sure it's not just passed down in families. There's something else to it. When Katara turned out to be a Waterbender, I thought maybe I wasn't good enough. The spirits skipped over me."

Toph said nothing. Having teased Sokka for being so ordinary on many occasions, especially early on in her adjustment to the real world and real friendships, she felt for him a sentiment that was neither pity nor guilt. She had been skeptical at first, given her great talent and her resulting capacity for strength—without Bending, she was only blind and rash. Witty but otherwise unremarkable. She had always assumed that this logic held true for everyone else who wasn't lucky enough to be able to chuck boulders around. The war had changed her. Sokka, in his constant self-improvement and the occasional identity crisis of being a non-Bender in a Bender's war, had changed her.

"It took a really long time for me to figure out my destiny," he said. "The men of my tribe were great enough warriors without me. The women had me play soldier off by myself because I was in the way. Katara had this amazing talent and I… was useless."

A little laugh escaped from Toph, unprompted, dropping her out of his monologue and back into her own body. She became acutely aware of the familiar smell of his skin beneath the salty layer. Her thumb was drawing circles around the ridge of his lower spine.

"Yeah, you laugh now," said Sokka, with the light air of one telling a joke. "Things got better after I learned from Piandao, but for a while I couldn't see myself making it out of the war. Being the Plan Guy was helpful, but not if I had to rely on others to protect me."

"Well, I can't say I'm not grateful that you learned, but even so. Fighting skills only take you so far." Toph shrugged. "I'd be dead if you weren't exactly _you_."

"I know."

The grumbling ocean filled another pause. He had told her once, while lying on his bed with his broken leg propped up and his body flushed with fever, that they shouldn't be alive. Their narrow escape from drowning was not of their own genius, but largely of chance. She had responded that she was okay with that. She said they must use their luck to make a tangible difference in the world, and they had. But the troubling thought lingered, creeping up on them when they least expected the intrusion, and now…

"So when did you change your mind?"

"You mean about the ocean?" Her chin pressed into his shoulder as she nodded, her black hair brushing side of his face. "It's much a part of me as it ever was. I just had to figure out my destiny."

"But the war's over, and the Harmony Restoration Movement is finally under control," Toph said. She hoped that he couldn't feel her heart like she could feel his, thrumming just a touch above average, ringing back into every one of her limbs like a ripple in her mind's perfect eye. He probably could. It didn't matter now anyway, given what she had just made up her mind to do. "So what's your destiny now?"

She pulled back from their hug when Sokka let the quiet ring a moment too long. Her arm sidled around his shoulder, his neck a perfect fit for the crook of her elbow.

"Well, I guess…" Sokka began, and she knew by his tone that a tiny smirk had ticked up in the corner of his mouth. He was studying her flushed face, the apprehensive line of her lips. Unconsciously she braced herself against his sturdy frame, her frozen hands lying flat against the base of his spine. "I guess it's up for grabs."

His words tightened her chest in a way the creeping chill of the sea could never have done. For a moment she could only wait until her heart had burned through it, thawed out the tiny dash of hope that she had long since tucked away. Toph felt something snap inside of her—self-control or inhibition, she did not know which went first—and all the years spent persuading herself against him were drowned by his one simple statement.

Toph could not smile. The rhythmic rumble of breaking waves urged her forward, _yes,_ _now_, _go_, but she could not smile. As if the shock of his implication were not enough to hold her suspended in place, the muscles in her face were rigid with cold. Her fingers ached with stiffness. She brought them up to frame his face.

Luckily, his mouth was very warm.

This kiss was not like the others in Toph's life. It was not the chaste and timid peck of her inexperienced first, nor was it the frantic spark of many nights that followed. Kissing Sokka was not the strike of the match, but the drip of candle wax that melted in its light—slow like ice but _hot_, hot like molten earth seeping into their frozen bodies until these spring waves might be of summer's end. Her terror of drowning flowed off with the rip tide.

For the longest instant of her life, they were not a brazen teen and her accomplice with the bum knee, not lucky favorites of circumstance. The tide pushed and pulled them in their place, bobbing up and into their faces before lulling back down across their chests. Toph was blind and weightless, rooted in the safe space of his lap. Sokka was patient, drawing the kiss longer, tugging her closer, daring the waves to squeeze between them. Toph cradled his head between her palms, waded deeper into the warmth and briny ocean taste—

And when they broke, it was only when stolen breaths could not sustain them. They gasped and paused and went back for more and stalled halfway. Sokka's forehead fell to meet hers instead. Toph grazed her thumb along the bow of his lips. Maybe they had fallen here after all. Maybe the airship's platform had snapped and sent them both hurdling down to where they could be washed away, and all this time they were simply waiting to re-emerge. Maybe they spent the last five years trying to convince themselves that they didn't need air, until their heads broke the surface and they realized that they could breathe for the first time.

Whatever the case, it was clear that neither Toph nor Sokka would need much time to adjust. It was just a side effect of the fall she never fell, of the grip that kept them together when by right they should have broken.

But these thoughts were only fleeting, chased away by Sokka and his kiss's return. Toph let them ebb with the tide and dissolve into salty ocean spray.

xXx

"_And when the day arrives,  
I'll become the sky,  
and I'll become the sea,  
and the sea will come to kiss me,  
for I am going home."_ – Trent Reznor, "La Mer"

xXx

_Fin._


End file.
